The Early Line: Crypto.com Launches Sports Event Trading
TCL offers a roundup of recent US gambling news called The Early Line every Monday.
Crypto.com + sports event trading = ? | The crypto trading platform is now going to have “sports event trading” in all 50 states. More from Kris Marszalek, co-founder and CEO of Crypto.com: “Sports Events Trading offers an entirely new platform for U.S. users to engage nationwide at Crypto.com and in the Crypto.com app. This unique financial product allows users to trade their prediction on the outcome of a sports event. It’s a fundamentally new concept for sports, and we’re thrilled to be the first regulated platform in the U.S. to offer it to our users.” Crypto.com is calling it a derivative regulated by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. More here.
Reading the line: The 30,000-foot-view is that sports betting and online gambling that occurs outside of state regulatory regimes is a growth industry as we sit here. Pushback on this is possible; this is creating a rudimentary sportsbook that feels like a different level than election prediction markets. Along with Robinhood getting into election markets and signaling its interest in sports betting, more is coming. It now feels like a matter of 1. who else is going to be an early mover 2. who is going to own this nascent market, and 3. how far this envelope gets pushed by operators. It’s also linking cryptocurrency with sports betting in the US in a material way for the first time (outside of the offshore industry). Good luck to anyone hoping that the genie goes back into the bottle, or trying to make it go there. More instant reaction from Chris Grove on LinkedIn here.
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Sports betting generates a lot of taxes | I am a little late to this, but The Tax Foundation did a deep dive on sports betting and taxes for 2023. According to the report, states received $1.8 billion in taxes. I think those numbers are a little low; Legal Sports Report puts the figure at $2.1 billion, and it’s already at $2.4 billion through partial November with more to come.
Reading the line: The top-line numbers across the US are a good story for proponents of legal online sports betting (and indeed other forms of online gambling). The industry has been taking a beating from Congress and mainstream media of late; it’s good to remind everyone the money going to states from legalization is not chump change. Lotteries often take victory laps for how much money they generate for states, even though that means their residents are losing money (to the state) on the whole. In any event, this would be a useful exercise (and PR campaign) once 2024 numbers are in across the country to highlight the billions that states are getting.Texas Republican advocates for legal sports betting | Mark McCaig — the Chairman of the Texas Republican Initiative and a former member of the State Republican Executive Committee — wrote an op-ed calling for legal sports betting in the state.
Reading the line: Any kind of development in Texas — the biggest state that has any chance of legalizing sports betting in 2025 — is news. While it’s nice to see an opinion like this in the wild leading into the legislative session, the odds of passage in the new year remain long until something changes in the Senate.
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Quick hitters
The Florida Lottery shuts down an online lottery courier service.
A rundown from me of new November sports betting metrics (paid subscribers).
Some highlights in sports betting in 2024 and predictions for 2025.
The New York Daily News calls for national regulation of sports betting.
Golden Nugget Online Gaming founder Thomas Winter joins Rush Street’s board.
About half of all online abuse directed toward tennis players is from gamblers.
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