SCCG Weekly Newsletter Volume 32
STEPHEN CRYSTAL TRAVELING TO ARIZONA AND CALIFORNIA
Stephen Crystal in the process of planning and scheduling travel to Arizona and California, where he will be meeting with clients and partners in the next month.
If you are interested in reaching out to Stephen Crystal regarding these trips, please contact him directly at stephen.crystal@sccgmanagement.com.
March Madness 2021 Highlights
AGA Research
Just a few days ago, the American Gaming Association published its consumer sports betting research and summarized its key findings, which were:
47.4 million American adults will wager on March Madness, about the same number that indicated they would bet on the tournament in 2019.
36.7 million Americans will fill out a bracket, down 8% from 2019.
30.6 million Americans will place more traditional bets on this year's tournament, up from 17.8 million in 2019.
17.8 million will place a bet online, up 206% from 5.8 million in 2019.
8.3 million will place a bet at a physical sportsbook, up 79% from 2019.
Interest in the tournament is up slightly from 2019, with 26% of Americans saying they are extremely or very interested in the tournament, compared to 23% two years ago.
42% of fans said they followed college basketball more closely this season, with 70% of those following more closely attributing their increased attention either somewhat or very significantly to the increased availability of legal sports betting.
Gonzaga University is the betting public's favorite to win the tournament (17%), followed by Florida State University (11%) and Baylor University (8%).
For the AGA's full publication on these key findings, click here.
Pent Up Demand
In March of 2020, the COVID-19 virus was spreading rapidly across the United States. Among the massive list of changes was the cancellation of the NCAA's college basketball championship. In 2019, sports betting was legal in seven states. Today, there are twenty states with legal sports wagering, giving an additional 65 million more people in the US the ability to place a legal wager on the March Madness tournament.
The results of surveys conducted by Morning Consult indicate that nearly twice as many people will place bets on the 2021 March Madness tournament compared with the last tournament in 2019 -- thirty-one million people across the United States.
18 million will place their wagers online -- an increase of over 200% from 2019.
8 million will bet in a retail sportsbook, almost 80% more than the last tournament two years ago.
This appears to have had a small negative effect on those who fill out tournament brackets, down eight percent from 2019, as many of those previously limited to bracket contests can now place legal sports bets in America's vastly expanded legal sports wagering markets.
SCCG Management Client Partner Solutions
Sports wagering is legal in Washington, Oregon, North Dakota, South Dakota, Minnesota, Nebraska, Kansas, Missouri, New Mexico, Texas, Kentucky, West Virginia, Virginia, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, South Carolina, Florida, New York, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Connecticut, New Jersey and Maryland.
If you are an operator in one of these markets, or in a market where legislation is being introduced, please reach out to us.
Client partner Sporting Solutions enables operators to outsource key components of their sports wagering solutions. Sporting Solutions is a market-leading systems supplier with a 26-year history and stability as part of Francaise de Jeux (FDJ), a leading French lottery and gaming operator and the world's fourth-largest lottery group.
Our newest client partner for sports wagering solutions is Metric Gaming, which has developed a multi-tenant, cloud-based sportsbook platform. This enables tenants to deploy differentiated versions of their core product to sub-tenants quickly and without increasing costs. Sportsbooks can deploy these versions across mobile, web, and retail operations.
Other sports-wagering related client partners include:
Betswap, LTD, a malta based company enabling secondary markets for sportsbook bets.
Scout Gaming Group, providing the ultimate fantasy sports experience for licensed and regulated B2B fantasy sports wagering.
Triggy, a B2B provider for live score messaging and personalized notifications.
Picklebet, a dedicated online esports betting platform.
Netacea, a recognized leader for bot detection and mitigation for web, mobile and APIs.
eFanGage, a platform for venue based sports engagement for restaurants, bars and arenas.
LSports, an API based provider of realtime sports data solutions.
Oddin.gg, a leading esports data provider.
Bettorlogic, a provider of sports betting marketing and CRM solutions.
Golden Race, the market leading provider of virtual sports solutions.
Spinmatic Entertainment, a provider of online HTML5 casino games.
Hollywood TV, a network of studios creating live games for multichannel experiences.
If you would like to read more about our Sports Wagering Solutions, please click the button below, or contact us directly. We're ready to talk.
WELCOME TO YOUR ROUNDUP OF EUROPEAN IGAMING NEWS
Our European weekly iGaming feature article summarizes the regthoughts of Jake Pollard, an experienced journalist and editor who has covered the online gaming and betting industry for many years. He has written for the leading media outlets as well as operators and suppliers in the igaming space. His areas of focus are wide-ranging and include regulatory developments in the US, emerging markets in South America and how European countries are adapting to a decade of igaming regulation.
France Betting Sector on a High despite COVID
France’s regulator, the Autorité Nationale des Jeux, published its annual report this week, and once again, online sports betting was the star performer in 2020. Overall online betting, poker, and pari-mutuel turnover reached €1.7bn, a record since the market regulated in 2010, ANJ said. Online betting revenues were up 6.8% to €940m as stakes grew 5.8% to €5.3bn (€5.49bn with bonuses included), with the number of active player accounts up 30%. The cancelation of sporting events led to a 62.7% drop in marketing spend to €161m. Just over half that total was spent on bonuses (53%). Details about player spend showed that 9% of the players bet between €1,000 and €3,000 and 4% of the bet between €3,000 and €10,000. This meant that 10% of the players represented 73% of betting turnover, while 1% of accounts represented 33% of turnover.
Great Expektations
Swedish mobile casino specialist LeoVegas has acquired the online sportsbook brand Expekt for €5m from Betclic Group. The group will pay the amount in cash from existing funds and take over all Expekt assets. Betclic, via holding company Mangas Gaming acquired Expekt just over 10 years ago for around €125m. Still, it refocused its energies on developing it into a sportsbook for high-value players in Sweden. LeoVegas said Expekt recorded net gaming revenues of €6.9m in 2020 and is profitable. It generated €1.6m in NGR in Q4 2020, and the purchase price represents a revenue multiple (based on NGR) of 0.7x for 2020. The deal is part of LeoVegas’s efforts to develop its mobile betting offering in its home market of Sweden. It will be hoping that Expekt will enable it to do that as a small but well-known brand. Betting accounted for just 9% of LeoVegas revenues in Q4 2020. It’s not acquiring any technology as part of the deal. Migration to its proprietary platform has already started and is expected to complete in May.
EU Advertising Workarounds
With Italy banning gambling advertising in 2019, more partnerships of the type signed by LeoVegas with Serie A club AS Roma can be expected. LeoVegas.news will feature all AS Roma news, match reports, and highlights, and the group’s logo will appear pitchside during home matches at the Stadio Olimpico. This summer, something similar will happen in Spain when they ban all gambling advertising and sponsorship activities. Still, non-gambling media outlets will be allowed to have betting news and sports sections with operators authorized to display their logos there.