Betting Worldwide

Sportradar will have a partnership with UEFA and there will be crypto funded betting in the USA

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We cover the latest news in our traditional 4H and Legalbet cooperation.

Belgium

The European Gaming & Betting Association has welcomed the news that the Republic of Ireland will soon have its first ever dedicated gambling regulator. We have covered this recently. However the EGBA external linkExternal links are prohibited over proposals to ban free bets. Members of the Association believe that it will push a section of customers to unlicensed gambling websites.

EGBA secretary general Maarten Haijer claims that he praises the decision of Ireland to establish the regulator as it will allow local operators to understand the rules better. The EGBA can share the experiences from other European jurisdictions. The Republic of Ireland remains one of the two European countries that do not have dedicated betting legislation. The legislative process is expected to take 12 months.

Ivan Kurochkin’s comments

The positive impact from the creation of the Gambling Regulatory Authority of Ireland is hardly debatable and should promote the proper development of the gambling business in Ireland in a more productive way. A separate authority consisting of experts in gambling will be more immersed in the problems of the industry, which in turn should help to fine-tune gambling regulations.

We can observe the Irish legislators leapfrogging years of gambling regulation in a great number of countries, but at the same time they take such major decisions as prohibiting play on credit and thus pursuing higher standards of player protection. The measure is not new and is used in many countries with developed gambling markets.

However, the ban on free bets is quite a contentious topic as it is a quite an effective marketing tool for player acquisition, as well as retention, used by almost all gambling operators.

Despite the fact that such a ban can have a negative impact on licensed operators, several countries have adopted such a ban (Lithuania for example) or in some way limited the amount of free bets (Sweden for example), or the countries where the citizens signed a petition to impose a ban on free bets (such as the UK).

In our opinion, Ireland should try to implement all the measures outlined in their gambling bill, yet find a balance between the expectations of gambling operators and players alike.

Europe

Sportradar external linkExternal links are prohibited a partnership with UEFA. The company will serve as exclusive authorised data collector and distributor for betting purposes. Along with being the data collector, the company has also announced the extension of its role as UEFA’s official integrity partner.

Sportradar had secured the exclusive deal following the association’s first competitive tender process for its data distribution rights for betting purposes. The partnership covers 1,550 matches from the 2021-22 season through to the end of 2023-24 across all UEFA’s properties.

Ivan Kurochkin’s comments

If you are not working with Sportradar, you will remain under the radar.

A new phase of cooperation between UEFA and Sportradar has entered a new phase with UEFA’s  first ever tender for the right to distribute sports data for betting, which was won by Sportradar.

It’s like the rights to broadcast the games, only to sell data to betting operators.

Thus, UEFA continues to diversify its sources of income and now, along with the sale of rights to broadcast football matches, it will periodically announce tenders for the rights to provide betting data.

By the way, this is not the only new product from UEFA this season. The organization addressed the concerns of a dozen elite clubs after their recent rebellion and complaints about the lack of transparency in the distribution of profits from the sale of rights to broadcast matches. They announced new tenders to find marketing partners to replace the Swiss agency TEAM after 2024, with which UEFA has almost exclusively cooperated through all these years.

Given UEFA's search for new revenue opportunities, it remains an open question whether Sportradar will face any competition in the future or whether the company will monopolize the collection and distribution of sports data by winning UEFA tenders year after year. This argument is supported by the close cooperation of the two organizations on the issue of sports integrity, monitoring and the prevention of match-fixing.

USA

Cloudbetexternal linkExternal links are prohibited their own crypto sportsbook. It was launched along with the start of the popular Melbourne Cup on November 2nd. Customers of the crypto casino can now bet on horses with bitcoin and 12 other cryptocurrencies on the biggest races on the international calendar, including Australia’s top event.

Horse racing isn’t the first sport covered by Cloudbet.Since 2013 it has included esports, political betting, and fully native sportsbooks in 17 languages for players around the world.  

Ivan Kurochkin’s comments

Indeed, at the moment, few crypto operators offer betting on horse racing.

According to the BitEdge classifier, only two of the top 8 sites offer betting on horse racing in Bitcoin —external linkExternal links are prohibited, and the heroes of our today's news — CloudBet.

Traditionally, horse racing is considered popular with a more mature audience, but it is hard to say with certainty that they are ready to actively bet in cryptocurrency.

In any case, CloudBet is worth noting for their spectacular appearance on the crypto betting stage. Obviously, their main task now is to create as much interest as possible around their brand and then, taking advantage of the lack of regulation of crypto casinos, retain players by providing a more diverse range of markets for betting than operators in regulated markets can afford.

The CloudBet website surprises with the simplicity of the registration process and ease of use. The popularity of horse racing will clearly earn them some prestige with a more mature audience that can easily agree to an experiment, and at the same time, increase the rate of adoption of technology. 

We can cautiously assume that the further growth in the popularity of crypto-casinos may contribute to another increase in the value of crypto-assets, and everyone is waiting for the crypto to gain some, aren’t we?

Let's continue to watch the situation. This time with a little more interest in our eyes.

USA

US-based sports betting brands FanDuel and DraftKings are external linkExternal links are prohibited for subscription sports publication The Athletic. The Athletic, which has more than 1.2 million subscribers, is seeking a valuation of US$750 million as it looks to fund the next stage of its development. Having seen previous takeover talks with the New York Times and Axios fall through, the digital sports content outlet reportedly hired specialist firm LionTree in September to help find a suitable buyer. 

The Information has reported that The Athletic is set to generate US$77 million in revenue in 2021 which is more than in the previous year. Still it won’t be helpful, because its net losses, which are reportedly falling year-over-year, are still expected to hit US$35 million. 

Flutter Entertainment, the holding company which owns betting platform FanDuel is in a strong financial position as the US gambling market continues to grow. Flutter brought in $902 million in revenue during the first six months of 2021.

Meanwhile, DraftKings saw its second quarter revenue increase by 297 per cent year-over-year to reach $298 million and appears to have cash to spend, having recently backed out of a $22.6 billion takeover deal for UK-based Entain.

Further reading:

  Ireland to ban free bets, France to fight limiting of bets
  How we entered the World Series of Poker broadcasting market