Tag Archives: Finance

Winning at wagering

Winning at wagering

In his latest betting investment column, Tom Waterhouse of Waterhouse VC looks at betting syndicates. While most are closed to external investment, he says that there are emerging syndicates that represent intriguing opportunities.

In the first century, Pliny the Elder wrote: “We are so much at the mercy of chance that chance is our god.”

Before the Renaissance, chance was associated with religion and fate rather than being a well studied area of science. During the Renaissance, mathematicians developed the field of probability, the foundation of risk management used by bookmakers and professional bettors.

Source: Pinnacle.

The syndicates

While professional betting is a rarely discussed and underinvested part of the wagering industry, it is hugely important and highly cash generative.

The world’s largest betting syndicates wager billions of dollars each year by exploiting a unique “edge” across sports and horse racing. Based on publicly available information, some of the larges..

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Arizona betting handle up 49% month-on-month in September

Arizona betting handle up 49% month-on-month in September

Consumers in Arizona bet a total of $538.0m on sports during September, a 49.0% increase on the previous month.

The September figure was significantly higher than the $361.0m wagered in August and was also the third consecutive month of growth in the state.

Players spent $533.3m betting online during the month, though just $4.0m was wagered at retail sportsbook facilities in the state.

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GB gross gambling yield recovers to almost £10bn in 2021-22

GB gross gambling yield recovers to almost £10bn in 2021-22

Great Britain’s gross gambling yield (GGY), excluding lotteries, increased 16.5% to £9.93bn ($12.0bn/€11.53bn)
from April 2021 to March 2022.

The figures were supplied through industry research from the Gambling Commission.

While this is a significant rise, the total is 0.8% below the 2019-20 numbers, which mostly occurred pre-pandemic. Despite the increase in the headline numbers since this, the Commission reports that the number of bettors in the sector have fallen.

“Since Covid-19 restrictions were lifted in 2021 and products and opportunities to gamble are available to consumers again, the overall percentage of the adult population who gamble remains lower than it was pre-Covid (28%),” said the Commission.

This can be explained by gaming spend increasing to a proportionally larger extent than the number of consumers. However, as the Commission outlines, there are strong signs of increased participation in gambling activities from younger demographics.

“There are signs of a r..

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Waterhouse VC: Crunch time in the US

Waterhouse VC: Crunch time in the US

In his latest column, which goes live first on iGB, Tom Waterhouse of Waterhouse VC scrutinises the gambling stock performance in the US, and the variable of customer acquisition costs.

As discussed in our June newsletter, investors in US online wagering operators are growing impatient with the losses recorded for the sake of gaining market share.

One reason we focus primarily on suppliers over operators is because operators rely heavily on their customer acquisition cost (CAC).

In mature, highly taxed, regulated markets, a handful of operators earn the majority of profits because they have the lowest CAC and the best operational efficiencies.

ONE-Year Performance of Operators with Exposure to US Online Wagering.

Sportsbet take 2

Flutter’s third quarter results demonstrated FanDuel’s (Flutter’s US brand) clear market leadership. It has a 42% gross gaming revenue (GGR) market share in mobile sports betting and 18% market share in igaming.

As shown above, Flutter is the only opera..

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Codere Online losses widen despite revenue growth

Codere Online losses widen despite revenue growth

Online gaming operator Codere Online has announced that losses increased 73% quarter-on-quarter from €6.7m (£5.8m/ $7.0m) to €11.6m in Q3 despite revenue growth on both a sequential and annual basis.

Much of the increased losses can be explained by increased marketing spend. Codere spent €5m more on marketing in Q3 than it did in Q2, with an increase from €19.3m to €24.3m. Other costs remained largely static quarter-on-quarter.

Total revenue increased to €28.9m in Q3 2022, a 51% year-on-year increase, while net gaming revenue increased 54% to €30.6m. This compares with the €27.4m in total revenue and €29.2m in net revenue the company received in the preceding quarter. The increased losses can be explained by revenue not increasing at the same speed as marketing spend.

Moshe Edree, CEO of Codere Online, said this growth was driven primarily by the company’s continued expansion in its critical markets of Mexico and Spain, which make up the majority of the business’ total revenue.

..

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Sportradar raises guidance after US segment turns Q3 profit

Sportradar raises guidance after US segment turns Q3 profit

Sportradar raised its full-year guidance after it reported a 30.7% revenue increase to €178.8m and said its US segment turned a profit in Q3.

Sportradar reported that revenue from the United States was up by 61.2% to €31.6m.

“This growth was driven by a strong increase of US betting services, driven by cross-selling non-data products to betting operators as well as benefiting from our customers’ growth as a result of a development in the underlying market and new states legalising betting,” the group said.

Rest-of-world betting services was the largest segment of the business, with revenue up 28.4% from Q3 of 2021.

This, Sportradar said, was mostly due to clients using more products in which Sportradar receives a higher revenue share, such as as managed betting services.

“This growth was driven primarily by increased sales of our higher value-add offerings including managed betting services, which increased 84% to €38.2 million, and live odds services, which increased 12% to €27..

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Codere Q3 revenue hits pre-pandemic levels thanks to strong LatAm growth

Codere Q3 revenue hits pre-pandemic levels thanks to strong LatAm growth

Spain, Italy and Latin America-facing gaming business Nueva Codere’s Q3 revenue increased 47.2% year-on-year to €343.4m (£300.7m/ $357.8m), recovering to pre-pandemic levels.

The robust revenue growth is mainly due to the lifting of Covid-19 restrictions in venues, ensuring a rebound for Codere in almost all markets.

Adjusted earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) increased by 74.8% to €57.4m from €24.6m in the same period the previous year. Codere’s potent performance in Argentina and other Latin American countries is one important factor in this result.

The company’s adjusted EBITDA margin also rose 2.6% to 16.7% in the three-months leading to 30 September compared to the same period of 2021.

Codere country totals

Revenue jumped for Codere in all Latin American markets – most dramatically in Argentina where it increased 146% year-on-year to €98.6m, 122% of the pre-pandemic total. One important factor is that average player spend per visit has incr..

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NY sets another online sports betting revenue record in October

NY sets another online sports betting revenue record in October

New York set a new online sports betting revenue record for the second consecutive month in October, while the state’s handle reached its highest total since March.

Gross gaming revenue from online wagering amounted to $145.7m in October, up 1.67% from the existing record of $143.3m set in September.

Player spending also increased by 22.2% month-on-month to $1.54bn, the highest amount in seven months and the third-highest monthly total since the state launched its legal market at the start of the year.

Read the full story on iGB North America

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Genius posts strong revenue growth as US expansion continues

Genius posts strong revenue growth as US expansion continues

Sports data business Genius Sports reported $78.7m (£67.5m/€77.4m) in revenue for the three months ending 30 September.

Total group revenue for Genius increased 28% year-on-year in constant currency. On this basis, the business’ three verticals experienced strong growth themselves with betting revenues rising by 13%, media by 41% and sports by 6%.

In adjusted earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA), the business achieved profitability, reporting $7.7m compared to the $392,000 loss Genius announced the same period the previous year.

“We are pleased to deliver another quarter of growth and group adjusted EBITDA profitability, and we remain on target to achieve our full-year goals set on our investor day at the start of 2022,” said Genius CEO Mark Locke. “This year has been characterised by strong execution as we continue to deploy innovative technology, win new customers and strengthen our key partnerships across the sports, betting, media and broadcastin..

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AGA: Q3 US gaming revenue hits record $15bn

AGA: Q3 US gaming revenue hits record $15bn

US gaming revenue reached a record $15.17bn (£13.31bn/€15.1bn) in Q3, an all-time quarterly high, according to the American Gaming Association’s (AGA) Commercial Gaming Revenue Tracker.

This is a 2% increase on the previous record of $14.81bn reached in the preceding quarter. Subsequently, 2022 is set to surpass 2021 as the highest grossing year of gaming revenue, already at 14.7% ahead of the same period the previous year. The total for the first nine months of the year is also ahead of 2019’s full-year revenue.

“While business challenges remain, high consumer demand continues to fuel our industry’s record success,” said AGA president and CEO Bill Miller. “Our sustained momentum in the face of broader economic volatility points to gaming’s overall health today and provides confidence as we look to the future.”

The industry’s year-on-year Q3 growth rate of 8.8% outperformed the broader US economy’s 2.6% growth rate in the same period.

[Read full story on iGaming Business]

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