Betting

U.K.-based sportsbook Betfair reported accepting more than $500 million in wagers on the slow-to-resolve U.S. presidential election this week. Analysts suggest the global total was at least double that. Gambling being gambling, there will be those who point to that as a lost opportunity for sportsbooks in the U.S., where states have been unanimous in their denial of requests to offer odds on elections.

The long-standing opposition stems from the possibility that someone who can wager on an election might try to influence it. Proponents argue that it’d be best to keep those bets in the legal market, where they’d leave an identifiable trail.

Think that over while you peruse what we have for you below.

COULD NFL HAVE LEAGUE BETTING DEAL IN TIME FOR SUPER BOWL?

• The NFL has been the most deliberate of all U.S. properties in setting a sports betting course, waiting until last season to allow the distribution of its official data to U.S. sportsbooks. It then waited until the spring to clear the way for teams to sell sportsbook sponsorships and until recent months to strike league sponsorship deals with operators outside the country.
  
  
• Still noticeably absent from that list: An official-status deal in the category like those the NBA, NHL and MLB signed with MGM Resorts, and a model by which U.S. sportsbooks can use league and team marks and IP on their apps, likely tied to the use of official data distributed by Sportradar.
  
  
• With sports betting now readily available in four of the seven largest U.S. media markets and 10 teams playing in states that have either opened or legalized -- including recently blessed Baltimore and New Orleans -- the NFL is on the cusp of taking that next step, though what exactly that will look like still is to be determined.
  
  
• “Given our national scale, opening the category makes sense when you have national access to consumers at that scale -- so (when) 40-50% of U.S. fans are able to legally bet in their market,” said Chris Halpin, who as Exec VP and chief strategy & growth officer has worked closely with owners to chart the league’s sports betting path. “We’re seeing the scale of the (leading sportsbooks) build to where they are in all the key markets and actively participating. And now we will decide on the right model and the right timing.”
  
  
• Halpin called the possibility that the NFL, which since June has seen 11 teams sign 18 sportsbook deals, could unveil its first league sponsorship deal in the category in time for the Super Bowl “possible, but hard to say,” in part because of the ever-present uncertainty that has come with COVID.
  
  
• The nation’s most bet on event clearly could provide an attractive marketing opportunity for a sponsor. But the short runway left to get a marketing program in place in time for that, coupled with the further expansion of the map in the next year make it more likely that the 2021 season will be the target.

COLORADO, OREGON, ILLINOIS ALLOW US TO FOLLOW THE MONEY

• We now have a bit more visibility into which sports the new American legal bettor is wagering on thanks to regulators in Colorado, Oregon and Illinois, which each track and release handle by sport and list more than 10 of them -- going well beyond the “other” catch-all that Nevada long has used to encompass all but football, basketball and baseball.
  
  
• The early numbers reveal what that “other” now looks like, driven largely by the adoption of mobile betting, which has freed casual bettors from the captivity of weekend trips to a brick-and-mortar sportsbook. When William Hill oddsmaker Nick Bogdanovich broke into the business in 1986, “other” barely generated enough money to pay the light bills between football seasons.
  
  
• “For at least the first 15 years that I was in the business, you had five months to make money, the football months, and for the rest you just held on,” said Bogdanovich, director of U.S. trading for William Hill. “But now, sports betting is at such an all-time high, each day is critical, each week is and each month is. Soccer. Tennis. These 'others' do matter. And they not only bring a significant amount to the bottom line, they bring people to your mobile app or into your sportsbook."
  
  
• Data collected in Illinois and Oregon during the crowded sports calendar of August and September yielded some surprises. Baseball generated considerably more handle than football or basketball in Colorado in September, bringing in $47.1 million to football’s $38.6 million and basketball’s $37.7 million. Baseball ($49.3 million) also beat basketball ($46.8 million) slightly in Illinois in August, the most recent month available from that state.
  
  
• Basketball ($8 million) was the most bet on sport in Oregon in September, beating out football ($7.1 million). Baseball generated $4.1 million for the month.

DO THESE "OTHER" SPORTS MATTER? BET ON IT

• Colorado, Oregon and Illinois reveal similar pecking orders among the “other” sports. In Oregon in September, soccer ranked fourth ($2.1M), followed by tennis ($1.4M) and table tennis ($1.3M). Interestingly, ping-pong bettors on average wagered $63.09 per bet, more than double the $31 average bet placed across sports.
  
  
• Colorado bettors had hockey as the next most popular sport in September ($11.4M), followed by table tennis ($5.4M), tennis ($5.1M), soccer ($4.9M) and golf ($3.2M). That reflected a shuffling of what occurred there in August, when basketball easily was the most bet on ($38M), followed by baseball ($22M). Hockey was a solid third ($13M), followed by table tennis and golf ($4.5M each), soccer ($3.4M), tennis ($2.4M) and MMA ($1.9M).
  
  
• Though September numbers from Illinois weren’t available yet, the state’s story in August is worth reviewing, as it offers a reminder of the connection between betting patterns and the fates of the local teams. Both the Cubs and White Sox were playing meaningful baseball throughout August, while the Bulls were locked out of the NBA bubble. Hockey was the third most bet on sport for the month ($14.8M), followed by soccer ($6.5M), golf ($3.2M) and combat sports ($3.1M).
  
  
• The traditional big three -- football, basketball and baseball -- still hold sway over the “others”, but it’s worth noting that the gap is closing among those three. As for those “others”, hockey had shares of 11% in both Colorado and Illinois in August, making it the only “other” sport to break double-digits in any state.
  
  
• “The 'others' will continue to grow, just because it’s untapped and they’re very interesting,” Bogdanovich said. “With soccer and tennis, we do an incredible amount of business. There are a zillion soccer and tennis matches. If people are bored they may want to eat their sandwich and watch FC Barcelona at lunch. There’s nothing else going on and there are so many (soccer matches). That combination is deadly.”

VOTERS IN MARYLAND, LOUISIANA, SOUTH DAKOTA GIVE A THUMBS UP

• Sports betting bills passed easily in all three states in which it was on the ballot on Tuesday. Two-thirds of voters in Maryland approved a straight up-down referendum, while Louisiana voters said yes to sports betting in 55 of the state’s 64 parishes, including New Orleans, Baton Rouge and Shreveport. Voters in South Dakota approved sports betting for Deadwood casinos.
  
  
• Now, it’s on to regulation and opening, which has proceeded at varying paces in other states that are home to major pro teams. Indiana and Colorado had sportsbook apps up and running in five and six months after passing, respectively. Illinois took nine months to open retail and 14 months to expand beyond a single app from BetRivers.
  
  
• Tennessee, which has no casinos and offers only online sports betting, took 18 months. Michigan passed in December 2019 and still hasn’t opened online. Virginia passed in April and isn’t expected to be up until early next year.
  
  
• With six commercial casinos and three horse tracks, the map in Maryland is straightforward enough that it could be on a faster track. But legislators still have to consider and pass a framework, and regulators will have to consider applications and approve apps. Opening parish-by-parish, Louisiana figures to take longer to get mobile up and running.
  
  
• “The speed at which some of the early states got into market vs. the time it takes now is stark,” said the NFL's Chris Halpin. “With a lot of the states that legalize, but are slow to get there, they don’t have an existing gaming commission or they don’t have an existing infrastructure for managing operators. ... The nuts and bolts are harder to do than anyone thinks from the outside. That’s a key learning. It’s not just snap your fingers.”

SPEED READS

• Filings straggling in from a handful of states in the last week brought the total U.S. handle for September to $2.46 billion, with Illinois still to report. That’s an increase of 26% in like states over August. Illinois almost certainly will push the total beyond $2.6 billion. With the NBA and NHL dropping off the board and fewer MLB games in October, it will be interesting to see whether the total for the month actually dips when reports roll in in the coming two weeks, or that money simply migrates to football and other sports.
  
  
• Online/mobile sports betting officially went live in Tennessee on Nov. 1. Action 24/7, BetMGM, DraftKings and FanDuel are the state’s first four licensed sportsbooks, with three others -- BetAmerica, William Hill and Wynn -- pending. Tennessee is the first state to “regulate online sportsbooks directly." Meanwhile, local teams are moving fast. The Titans already signed up with BetMGM, while the Grizzlies on Monday reached a multiyear deal with FanDuel.
  
  
• A new sports betting bill had its second reading before the Canadian Parliament this week, the “next step in the decade-long battle to allow single-game betting.” The bill will need to pass three readings, a committee stage and, ultimately, approval from the Senate.
  
  
• U.K.-based Betfair on Wednesday morning said that it had taken in more than $564 million on the U.S. presidential election, making it the company’s “most-bet event” since the 2016 election. A bettor last week wagered about $1.3 million on Joe Biden, which tied for the third-largest bet in the Betfair history. The Betfair election market “will stay live as long as the race appears up for grabs, even if it winds up in front of the Supreme Court.” Betfair spokesperson Sam Rosbottom said, “Money is still pouring in. The odds are still swinging ever-so-slightly.”

SBJ offers must-read newsletters covering Betting, College Sports, Esports, Football, Marketing and Media. To stay in the know, read SBJ’s newsletters online or manage your newsletter subscriptions.

Not a subscriber? Sign up for a free trial to read our newsletters.

Something on the sports betting beat catch your eye? Tell us about it. Reach out to either me (bking@sportsbusinessjournal.com), Richard Bush (rbush@sportsbusinessjournal.com) or Austin Karp (akarp@sportsbusinessjournal.com) and we'll share the best of it. Also contributing to this newsletter is Lucas Smith (lsmith@sportsbusinessdaily.com).

Good lawyers and legal scholars warn not to assume much based on what you hear from the justices during a Supreme Court hearing. But, standing on the steps of the court listening to Chris Christie crow that morning three years ago, I was pretty sure some misguided soul soon would be able to bet on the Jets in New Jersey. The only question was the pace at which other states would follow.

Here we are, 18 legalized and operational states later, introducing SBJ Betting, an every-other-Friday newsletter that endeavors to deliver news and insights from that sector. Sportsbooks took more than a projected $2.5 billion in wagers in September, and that was without a single app on devices in California, New York, Texas or Florida.

More on that, and lots more, below.

NHL GETS BEHIND AGA RESPONSIBLE BETTING EFFORT 

• The NHL’s decision to put marketing assets and hockey-themed creative behind the American Gaming Association’s responsible gambling campaign portends a trend likely to extend across U.S. sports as fans return to stadiums and arenas.
  
  
• The AGA launched the campaign softly in D.C. and Las Vegas in March with hopes of garnering support across the leagues, beginning with NASCAR, which was poised to announce its participation just as sports in North America went dark. NASCAR moved on to more pressing matters and the program was shelved, where it remained until last month, when NASCAR rolled out its first PSAs, customized around the “Take a Pit Stop” tagline.
  
  
• Dubbed “Have a Game Plan”, the AGA’s campaign recommends bettors set and stick to budgets, understand odds and risk, view betting as a social activity and bet with regulated U.S. sportsbooks. The NHL will develop hockey-themed in-arena video board spots and announcements around it, as well as digital treatments, all of which will be provided to teams in states in which sports betting is legal. The hope is that they then will use the templates to develop content specific to teams and markets.
  
  
• “The AGA said: 'Use hockey terminology, use hockey imagery, create a connection and something that your fans will be able to relate to,'” said NHL Chief Business Officer Keith Wachtel. “That allows us to do some things that are unique."
  
  
• The AGA made a customizable, plug-and-play template a priority when it created the campaign with agency Sportfive (previously Lagardere Sports), realizing that fans were far more likely to pay attention to a message that came from leagues or teams than from a casino trade group. “The campaign is fully scalable, up or down,” said AGA Senior VP/Strategic Communications Casey Clark. “There are opportunities to make this really applicable to each market, each team, each sport. In that aspect we really achieved what we set out to do, which is to create something versatile.”
  
  
• You can hear more from Wachtel on this and other developments around sports betting on the next episode of the SBJ Unpacks podcast, dropping later this afternoon.

BUSY SEPTEMBER SCHEDULE BRINGS RECORD HANDLES

• Boffo is an apt description of the latest results from sportsbooks in New Jersey, which in September had a second consecutive record-setting month, this time attracting $748.5 million in wagers. That topped August’s $667.9 million, which then was the busiest month ever for any state.
  
  
• It’s not just New Jersey. September brought record handles in Pennsylvania ($462,787,392), Indiana ($207,042,428), Iowa ($72,397,241), West Virginia ($63,468,831), Oregon ($26,174,303), Delaware ($12,439,302) and D.C. ($12,186,041). More records will fall as Illinois and Colorado report in the coming days, putting September on pace to surpass the $2.1 billion wagered at U.S. books in August. I’m making the over/under $2.6 billion.
  
  
• New Jersey differs from other states materially. Most are earlier in their opening of betting, so growth can be attributed to more sportsbooks entering the fray. New Jersey isn’t a mature sports betting market, but it’s farther along than the rest. And it is not just breaking, but obliterating, the numbers it put up pre-COVID. How much of that is a product of the unprecedented wedging of the NBA and NHL bubble-seasons into the August and September calendars? And is it sustainable once schedules return to their traditional cadence?
  
  
• To get a read on the Garden State, we checked in with Harris Blitzer Sports & Entertainment Chief Commercial Officer Adam Davis, whose organization operates the Devils, the first U.S. sports franchise to build out a sportsbook sponsor portfolio in a newly regulated state.
  
  
• “I said from the beginning, we are in the infancy of sports betting, and wait until you see where we are five or 10 years down the road,” Davis said. “What we’re seeing right now is attributed to adoption, but ... there’s still so much more experience and adoption that is coming.” Davis agreed the hefty fall sports calendar and COVID-driven increase of discretionary entertainment dollars as factors, but said he’s still convinced the growth is sustainable.

SEPTEMBER SCORECARD FOR ONLINE MARKET SHARE

• The September scorecard of online market share in states that list handle by individual sportsbooks, culled from state regulator filings, looks like this (by percent, double-digit only):
  
  
  • Pennsylvania: FanDuel 41; DraftKings 28; Rush Street 11.
  • West Virginia: FanDuel 75; DraftKings 25.
  • Indiana: DraftKings 52; FanDuel 23
  • Iowa: William Hill 52; DraftKings 20
  • Illinois (August): Rush Street 87; DraftKings 10.

FANS SAY SPORTSBOOKS AT GAMES WOULD BE ENTICING

• About twice as many people said a retail sportsbook in an arena or stadium would be an attraction than said it would be a turnoff in a recent survey by sports market research firm Navigate.
  
  
• In the survey of 1,000 people -- about half of whom self-identified as casual or avid fans -- 38% said that an onsite sportsbook would “improve the fan experience”, with 27-29% saying it would make them more likely to attend games and more likely to bet. Millennials were the most bullish on betting, with 51% predicting it would enhance their experience. Those who want to bet say they’d attend 15 games a year, dedicating $78 for wagering each time.
  
  
• Positive attitudes toward betting skewed younger, with support for legalization higher among Millennials (52%) and Gen Z (46%) and lower among Gen X (39%) and Boomers (21%). Almost half of all respondents said they didn’t care either way.
  
  
• Do they realize they probably won’t have to go to a brick-and-mortar sportsbook in order to place a bet? There’s no way to know. But the survey does confirm a general lack of understanding about sports betting among those surveyed. Only 56% were aware that sports betting now is legal in some states. Almost that many said they were unaware it was illegal before. Both those are in line with other consumer studies.
  
  
• So far, only D.C. and Illinois carved out on-premise exclusivity for stadiums and arenas. But teams are pushing hard in some states yet to legalize.

SPORTS WAGERING HITS THE BALLOT BOXES

• Sports betting is on the ballot in Maryland, with voters asked to authorize it to raise money for education. With budgets bleeding, that’s likely to be a compelling proposition. Even more compelling: The fact that D.C. already is taking bets, and sportsbooks in Virginia are expected to open early next year.
  
  
• The initiative is supported by a campaign committee that raised $1.5 million from FanDuel and $1.25 million from DraftKings as of an Oct. 9 report filed with the Maryland Board of Elections. The organization reported spending $1.3 million on ads that have run since September. But the effort still faces a long road, even if it passes. The ballot question does not address who would regulate sports betting, how many sportsbooks the state would license and a host of other issues that likely will take months to resolve, even before regulators get to the process of taking applications from operators.
  
  
• Sportsbook operators also are funding a ballot push in Louisiana, though it would deliver more narrow impacts than the Maryland referendum. Louisiana voters will decide on whether to bring sports betting only to their own parish. While most are expected to approve the measure, it is unlikely to be legal statewide. Support of the measure has $1.25 million in funding from DraftKings, FanDuel, Caesars, Penn National and Boyd Gaming, per Louisiana campaign finance records.
  
  
• Voters in South Dakota also have the chance to approve sports betting, but it would only be legal in Deadwood, an old gold-rush town that features the graves of Wild Bill Hickok and Calamity Jane. There is no mention of expansion beyond that, or the mobile wagering that would attract major operators.

SPEED READS

• New Jersey State Sen. Paul Sarlo wants to allow betting on the College Football Playoff, and if voters approve a referendum that could be on the November 2021 ballot, it would clear the way for that to happen. Betting in New Jersey would be allowed on the three CFP games, and on games in other states in which New Jersey teams are playing. The change would only apply to postseason games, with betting on regular-season games still banned.
  
  
• Massachusetts legalizing sports betting in 2020 “appears to be all but dead,” but 2021 could be a different story, per Legal Sports Report. Should sports betting be passed, the American Gaming Association already has reach out to the Massachusetts legislature to back the inclusion of college sports betting.
  
  
• Circa in Las Vegas on Wednesday unveiled what it “claims to be the world’s largest sportsbook.” The stadium-style venue has a 78-million-pixel HD screen, a dedicated broadcast studio and enough room for up to 1,000 bettors. Some around the industry noted the new offering will “put pressure” on other properties to invest in their sportsbooks. Westgate has long held the world’s largest sportsbook title.
  
  
• William Hill passed along these renderings of its sportsbook location planned for Capital One Arena. Accessible from the street, similar to team stores at most arenas, the two-level sportsbook will include a radio/TV studio and a replica of the arena jumbotron. D.C. regulations allow for use of the William Hill mobile app within the arena, but not elsewhere in the district. Plans call for completion early next year.

William Hill's sportsbook at Capital One Arena will include a radio/TV studio and replica of the arena jumbotron

SBJ offers must-read newsletters covering Betting, College Sports, Esports, Football, Marketing and Media. To stay in the know, read SBJ’s newsletters online or manage your newsletter subscriptions.

Not a subscriber? Sign up for a free trial to read our newsletters.

Something on the sports betting beat catch your eye? Tell us about it. Reach out to either me (bking@sportsbusinessjournal.com), Richard Bush (rbush@sportsbusinessjournal.com) or Austin Karp (akarp@sportsbusinessjournal.com) and we'll share the best of it. Also contributing to this newsletter is Lucas Smith (lsmith@sportsbusinessdaily.com).