A New Innings by Manoj Badale

Author:Manoj Badale
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Clink Street Publishing
Published: 2020-09-15T00:00:00+00:00

A conflict of interest

The underlying issue is that the gambling industry and sport are blood brothers. They are joined at the hip. Look at English football. Stoke City played a home match against Middlesbrough in the English Football League in October 2018. Stoke are sponsored by Bet365 and play at the Bet365 stadium (the company was founded in Stoke by the Coates family who are directors of the football club). Middlesbrough are sponsored by an online casino 32Red. The competition’s official name is the EFL Sky Bet Championship. Some 27 out of the 44 clubs in the Premier League and the Championship feature a betting company on their shirts. This is just if you were in any doubt about the influence of gambling on sport. And we haven’t even mentioned the 95% of ad breaks during English football matches that contain a gambling advert (although recent laws in the UK have a ban on in-game ads). Over the pond in the NFL there has been a major spike in casino sponsors with Caesar’s Entertainment becoming the league’s first-ever ‘Official Casino Partner’. There will be a surge of sponsorship interest now that gambling on sports has been legalised in the US. Betting companies are tripping over each other to market themselves through sport.

The mistrust of betting is prevalent across the US because of historic concerns about Mafia involvement. The Supreme Court’s recent decision has opened up the sports betting market. Peter Jackson, chief executive of Flutter, which owns Betfair, describes the opening up of the US as “the most exciting development since the arrival of online betting.” A combination of population size and the passion for sport could make it one of the most lucrative sports betting markets in the world. Now legal in 14 states, five others have legislation pending. Estimates for the size of the potential market vary wildly. Some value the market at over $8bn in revenue in a few years. If the American Gaming Association’s $150bn estimate for the illegal sports betting market is accurate, it could be even larger.

Manoj: American sports are long and produce lots of data. The potential for bets on details like the speed of a baseball pitch or the number of yards gained in football are multiple. The popularity of in-play betting (called ‘prop bets’ in the US) has grown fast. But there are divisions between the sports owners and gambling companies. The league and teams argue that they produce the sport and should share in the proceeds – in effect getting royalties. Casino operators argue that by offering sports betting they are encouraging even more people to watch games, and that drives the value of their digital and media rights.

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