This Week's Sports Betting Update

Hello, we’ve taken a look at what’s new, trending and being talked about in the sports betting world this week. Grab a coffee, take five minutes and we’ll fill you in on everything you need to know.

One big story?

Gambling review white paper could be delayed until new prime minister takes office

Reports this week suggest the UK government's gambling review white paper could be subject to further delay. Westminster sources said that officials at Number 10 have decided the issue should be left to the new prime minister to deal with rather than being published before parliament rises for summer recess on July 21.

Asked what the latest state of play was, a spokesperson for the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport said: "We are undertaking the most comprehensive review of gambling laws in 15 years to ensure they are fit for the digital age.''

This week, the industry newsletter Earnings+More revealed the document contained proposals for enhanced affordability checks to be made on punters when they had made a net loss of ￡2,000 over 90 days.

The gambling industry has claimed that such proposals would wipe billions of pounds from their revenues, and between ￡20 million and ￡30m from the horseracing levy, if punters have to provide personal financial information such as bank statements in order to continue betting online.

Click here to get more on the government’s gambling review and the likely measures included in the forthcoming white paper.

What you need to know

Commercial

• ???? 888 is attempting to raise over €700m via a notes issue linked to its buyout of the non-US assets of William Hill. 888 plans to offer around €400m in notes at an aggregated principal of 7%, which would be due in 2027, followed by a further €300m at a floating interest rate. It is part of the operator’s refinancing plans to pay off some of William Hill’s existing debts. More
• ???? Unibet has returned to the Netherlands following a nine-month absence from the Dutch iGaming market. Its parent company, Kindred Group, obtained a licence to serve Dutch players in June, and Unibet reopened its online doors from July 11. More
• ???? Smarkets has opted to launch a new office stateside, in a bid to support its US-based sports betting services. Smarkets entered the US sports betting market in 2019 and launched in Colorado a year later. Its first US office will be located in Washington D.C. More
• ???? Bet-at-home has revealed it has permanently surrendered its licence with the UK Gambling Commission. The Commission suspended the operator’s licence on July 7, based on failures surrounding social responsibility and anti-money laundering. More
• ???? Spotlight Sports Group has launched a new microsite for Sky Bet to celebrate the start of the new 2022/23 English football season. The new football content partnership will see Spotlight Sports Group build, host and manage a microsite integrated into Sky Bet’s desktop site and native app containing editorial content and dynamic fan-led data derived from the Sky Bet Fan Hope Survey. More

Regulation

The island of Curacao is set to undergo a radical reform of its iGaming licensing. A new licensing body is set to be established, increasing the barriers to entry and enabling the nation to collaborate with other reputable jurisdictions to combat illicit gambling. More

Technology

Sportradar has confirmed it has agreed to a multi-year partnership with the Turkish Basketball Federation (TBF). Under the terms of the arrangement, Sportradar will supply betting video content and data across a host of TBF leagues, including the top-tier Turkish Basketball Super League (BSL). More

People news

Entain names Shailendra Maurya as new Chief Technical Officer

Entain’s recent recruitment drive has continued with the appointment of Shailendra Maurya as the new Chief Technical Officer for Ladbrokes Coral.

Maurya, who has already been employed by Entain for more than four years, had been Head of Digital Clients and latterly Head of Digital for Ladbrokes Coral before this latest promotion.

Maurya joins a string of recent Entain hires, including Dominic Grounsell, who was named Ladbrokes Coral’s new Chief Commercial Officer.

Click here to get the thoughts of Maurya on his latest internal promotion at Entain.

This week's talking point

Entain chief admits prospect of affordability checks is already hitting profits

Entain CEO Jette Nygaard-Andersen has revealed that affordability checks are already curbing profits in the UK. The company admitted the scale of the impact from affordability checks was hard to quantify given the additional economic headwinds experienced.

Entain’s trading update stated that online revenues were likely to flatline year-on-year due to a mixture of affordability measures and the cost-of-living crisis.

Nygaard-Andersen revealed that Entain has been implementing its own affordability checks long before the UK government’s gambling white paper was even on the horizon. She said the firm was using three times more behavioural markers than many of its industry counterparts.

Click here to find out the nations demonstrating the strongest revenue performance for Entain so far in 2022.

This week's insight

The road to World Cup 2022: How operators plan to tackle the biggest tournament of the year

SBC News recently conducted a roundtable with industry leaders regarding their respective approaches to a winter 2022 Fifa World Cup. With the pinnacle of the sports betting calendar scheduled for mid-season, what does this mean for betting trends?

Sergey Tsukanov, Head of Sportsbook at Betby, believes the post-pandemic world means that a shift to a winter World Cup won’t have a negative effect as sports fans are now used to the uncertainty and fluidity in scheduling.

Paul Lowery, Head of Sports at Checkd Group, describes August as an integral courting season for sportsbooks this summer, attempting to capture the loyalty of customers ahead of the new domestic seasons and leading into World Cup 2022. Lowery also sees sportsbook promotions being more selective in the group stages of the World Cup, with strong headline offers on the earliest games to keep their spending secured on the later matches.

Suren Khachatryan, Founder and CEO of Technamin, is also confident that the festive period will be no barrier to those watching and betting on the World Cup this winter. Khachatryan insists that online markets enable punters to bet under any circumstances, especially given that true fans will always find time to wager on the world’s biggest event.

Click here to discover some of the potential betting trends during World Cup 2022, as predicted by industry experts.

The BetTech Ecosystem 2022

Investigating the global landscape of sports betting and iGaming suppliers

Spotlight Sports Group has released the second edition of the BetTech Ecosystem, which provides key insight into the global market of suppliers for sports betting and iGaming operators.

After a successful launch of the first edition last year, the new edition is bigger and better having included 60% more companies, seven new sub-sections and 127 new suppliers.

Click here to download the high-res BetTech visual and the full report.?

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