Nascar's Sports Gaming Ambitions

Plus: a new sports betting exchange, and DraftKings pulls closer to FanDuel.

Aug 27, 2023

Welcome to your weekly roundup! This week: a new venture-backed sports betting exchange, Nascar is gearing up for more sports gaming, and DraftKings is pulling closer to FanDuel. As always: if you liked reading this, please subscribe or share it with a friend. Have a great weekend!

Market Movers

A new exchange: Sports betting exchange startup Novig raised $6.4 million pre-seed funding from Lux Capital, Y Combinator and others. Novig says its sports betting exchange will offer peer-to-peer betting without a vig, or commission—and will instead make money through fees to institutional traders and other methods. Two other exchanges, Sporttrade and Prophet Exchange, operate in New Jersey—and Sporttrade, which offers a stock market approach to sports wagers, also just received its license in Colorado. Novig plans to launch in Colorado in October.

Micro bets for Nascar: Nascar gets a micro betting deal with data provider nVenue. nVenue will use live track data and historical data to create predictions and odds. including for races and drivers.

Meanwhile, Nascar looks to be seeking a bigger piece of the sports gaming market: FanDuel has become the third authorized operator for Nascar, in addition to Barstool Sportsbook (soon to be ESPN Bet) and BetMGM.

DraftKings inches closer to FanDuel: DraftKings’ share of U.S. handle increased to 34% in the second quarter of 2023, from 29% in Q1 2023. FanDuel also increased its share to 37% from 34%. BetMGM and Caesars both lost share.

baseball players playing on field during daytime — Photo by Chanan Greenblatt on Unsplash

What we’re reading

Kentucky approved nine operators for sports betting licenses: bet365, BetMGM, Caesars, Circa, DraftKings, Fanatics, FanDuel, Kambi and Penn Sports.
Billy Walters, “the greatest” sports bettor ever, dropped his book. He sat down for an interview with SportsHandle.
Simplebet, a provider for DraftKings, Caesars and bet365, adds in-play offerings for college football.
Yahoo Sports opens a sportsbook powered by William Hill technology at Venetian in Las Vegas.
Fanatics was approved to launch in Pennsylvania—using PointsBet’s former operations that it acquired in June.
Suspect arrested in $22 million illegal offshore sports betting operation for US customers.
Iowa proposes changes after college sports betting scandal.
Rivalry launches esports same game parlays in Ontario.
The PGA says there’s been no increase in fans disrupting golfers due to betting.

Overheard

“We’re serious about the bill. It’s just about how quickly we can get the sponsors.” —U.S. Rep. Paul Tonko, on his proposal for a federal ban on sports betting commercials.

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