This Week's Sports Betting Update

One big story

Kentucky all set to become the next US state with legalised sports betting in September

The Bluegrass State of Kentucky is readying itself for legalised sports betting in the coming weeks. Retail sportsbooks will be permitted to operate within state lines from 7 September, with online sportsbooks scheduled to launch on 28 September.

Governor Andy Beshear finalised the launch schedule with the Kentucky Horse Racing Commission (KHRC) along with state lawmakers.

Beshear put pen to paper on a fast-tracked regulatory framework at Red Mile, which is likely to be one of the first venues to go live with sports betting. The tight launch deadlines are designed to help the state maximise revenues for the full 2023 NFL and NCAAF seasons.

Click here to learn more about House Bill 551, including the two-tier taxation framework for licensed operators in Kentucky.

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What you need to know

Commercial

• Betclic has inked its biggest sponsorship deal in the Portuguese market by sponsoring the top-flight of Portugal’s football league. The division will be known as Liga Portugal Betclic for the 2023-24 campaign, running through to the end of the 2026-27 season. Betclic replaces Entain’s outgoing Bwin as the principal official title sponsor of Liga Portugal. More
• Kindred Group’s Unibet has launched its iGaming and online sportsbook platforms in the regulated market of Pennsylvania. Unibet, which has been active in the PA market for almost four years, first went live as a retail sports betting venue in tandem with Mohegan Sun Pocono. More
• Sportradar has extended its long-term deal as the official sports betting data provider to Caesars Sportsbook. This arrangement covers a string of major league sports, including the NBA, MLB and NHL. This includes optical tracking data for NBA games, allowing Caesars to offer next-generation prop betting markets to increase same-game parlay revenues. More
• Betfred’s gross profit rose ￡151.9 million to ￡542.9m in its 2021-22 trading period ending September 25, 2022. The UK bookmaker also posted a 26% year-on-year rise in wagers accepted, totalling ￡8.8 billion. Operating profits were subsequently up 38% year-on-year to ￡36.8m. More

Regulation

The UK Gambling Commission (UKGC) has confirmed the outcome of its consultation on affordability checks will be published this month. This will be joined by proposals across other areas of the UK gambling industry, including age verification checks offline, marketing campaigns and cross-selling and the design of online casino games. More

Technology

XLMedia has divested three of its EU-focused iGaming affiliate platforms. Casino.gr, Casino.pt and Casino.se have all been sold to Beach Services in a deal worth $4m. In the last financial year to December 31, 2022, these sites posted $840k in combined revenue, with gross profits totalling $750k. More

People news

Gonzaga Higuero appointed new CEO of Codere

Grupo Codere has named Gonzaga Higuero as its new chief executive officer. Higuero’s remit will be to oversee the firm’s ambitious growth plans across its primary operating markets.

Higuero moves to Codere, having spent four-and-a-half years as CEO of Health Transportation Group. The firm’s non-executive chair, Christopher Bell, sees this appointment as a reinforcement of its return to a long-term “growth path”.

Click here to learn more about Higuero’s appointment and Codere’s latest Q1 2023 trading figures.

This week's talking point

William Hill’s 2022 retail performance helps amid online pressures

Racing Post’s industry editor, Bill Barber, has combed through William Hill’s latest annual report and fiscal statements which showed tremendous resilience in the bookmaker’s retail performance.

With group revenues falling by almost 1% year-on-year in 2022, retail net revenues helped to drag the company through amid falling online revenues. Retail reached ￡514.2m, up 53% year-on-year, due largely to easing Covid-19 restrictions.

This almost offset the 19% year-on-year decline in digital net revenues, which fell to ￡509.1m in 2022. This was partly due to a return of retail shops and driven further by the emergence of enhanced customer safety checks ahead of the UK government’s gambling review white paper.

William Hill’s international gaming segment has also suffered an uncertain time in the last 12 months, not least due to its exit from the Dutch market.

Click here?to learn more about the renaissance of William Hill’s retail betting shop estate last year.

This week's insight

How a black market operator managed to become one of the world’s biggest bookmakers

Citibet has been described by Racing Post’s deputy industry editor, Peter Scargill, as a “worrying phenomenon”. This offshore black market bookmaker is fast becoming a headache for many horseracing markets, not least the tote run by the Hong Kong Jockey Club (HKJC).

The feature race at Sha Tin’s Chinese New Year Cup in January saw ￡210m wagered through the HKJC, but much, much more was wagered with Citibet. Senior officials at HKJC fear turnover with Citibet is on a par with its tote betting facility.

While several south-east Asian black market bookies have tried and failed to establish themselves, Citibet is one that doesn’t appear to be going away anytime soon. With an annual turnover approaching ￡38bn, this far exceeds HKJC’s tote turnover of ￡28.2bn in 2021-22.

Citibet has been a prominent feature in the black market sports betting industry for over a decade, particularly in Australia and Asia. However, with affordability checks increasingly prevalent in the regulated UK market, some British punters are also turning to Citibet too.

Paul Leyland, partner of Regulus Partners, said with some confidence that Citibet was already a bigger betting operator than Betfair.

Click here to learn more about how Citibet has grown and the concerns over its possible influence with the HKJC and the Asian Racing Federation.

The BetTech Ecosystem 2023

Investigating the global landscape of sports betting and iGaming suppliers

The BetTech Ecosystem Report provides key insight into the global market of suppliers for sports betting and iGaming operators. While the visual offers an overarching view of the key suppliers across the 42 subsections that make up the BetTech Ecosystem.

Click here?to read the BetTech Ecosystem Report.

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