Arms Race or Gold Rush The US Sports Betting Business

Ever since the Supreme Court ruling in the US back in 2018 allowing for sports betting everyone knew it would open the door to a huge market of sports betting fans, since sports betting launched back then over $220 billion has been wagered on sports Americans love to watch and gamble on.

However many observers have now commented on whether the business is turning into an arms race or a gold rush for companies given the huge numbers along with mergers and acquisitions and money spent on advertising and marketing currently taking place.

Below are just the latest deals that involve sports betting business:

In May this year Aristocrat who were desperate to get into the online gambling business and who failed in its attempt to acquire Playtech finally got a deal done and bought Neogames for $1.2 billion and hope to use the platform to jump into sports betting.

Just this week in a bidding war between DraftKings and Fanatics for PointsBet with eventually offering $195 million but topped by Fanatics to $225 million PointsBet said it would approve the offer and so DraftKings pulled out. That deal will give Fanatics entry into 15 new states as PointsBet is the seventh largest operator in the US.

Then again just this week social media star and boxer Jake Paul announced that his micro betting site Betr had raised another $35 million in funding on top of the $50 million last year and currently operates in just two states those being Ohio and Massachusetts and plans to launch in other states this year. Even such as small platform like Betr is now valued over upwards of $150 million.

As more US states legalise sports betting there will be more spend on mergers and acquisitions as they try and reduce the larger companies footprint in the US with FanDuel enjoying the largest market share with 45%, but others are spending big to chip away at their and others market share as the US business continues to grow.