Bet365's Modest Growth in the US Sports Betting Arena
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00:00 (upbeat music)
00:03 - All right, so let's get started here with Bet365,
00:07 intriguing sports betting company
00:08 that I feel like we don't talk enough about.
00:11 And certainly all of the sports betting companies
00:14 and operators are hanging in there, making money.
00:16 Bet365, maybe not the kind of revenue
00:21 that some of the other sports books are making,
00:23 but it looks like this transition
00:24 from outside of the United States into the United States
00:27 is having at least some marginal success.
00:30 - Yeah, I would say so.
00:32 Look, Bet365 released their earnings.
00:35 Now, they're a private company.
00:36 And so this report that came out actually only takes us
00:39 from basically April 22 through March of 23.
00:44 So we're not looking at the bulk
00:46 of what Bet365 has done this year,
00:48 which is come in the football season, right?
00:50 But they look at, they said they had a 15% increase
00:54 in sports betting revenue and their total revenue
00:57 hit 4.3 billion for the year, Craig.
01:00 So Bet365 is obviously just a huge company
01:04 that we knew was going to be,
01:06 we knew that they could do something in the US
01:09 if they chose to do so.
01:10 And it was looking like they were not choosing to do so
01:13 for a while now.
01:14 And then now we get another genius move by Bet365.
01:19 Everybody else is pulling back on promotions
01:21 and kind of taking it easy.
01:22 And now Bet365 is coming in and saying, okay,
01:25 this is our time to go.
01:26 They spent heavily last year
01:29 in this 2023 financial year, Craig.
01:32 They attributed 122.5 million increase of direct costs
01:37 to that growth in revenue.
01:40 So that's mostly US-based.
01:42 And they had a total cash burn of 850 million.
01:47 Now, again, they're doing a lot of things.
01:49 They're improving their live casino product in the UK.
01:52 They are obviously still improving their products
01:56 all around the world, honestly.
01:59 But the US is one of the main areas
02:02 that they're focusing on now for that growth.
02:04 And we're starting to see it.
02:06 We saw it in the football season, obviously.
02:09 You know, you have for November in Ohio,
02:13 Bet365 ranked as fifth highest in terms of handle.
02:16 And that is probably a little noisy
02:19 because if you remember, ESPN Bet came in
02:22 and they did like 70 million in handle,
02:24 but they also did about 30 million in promo.
02:26 So, you know, we've been talking a lot
02:30 about Fanatics and ESPN Bet,
02:32 and talking a lot about, you know,
02:34 the lead the DraftKings and FanDuel have,
02:37 and, you know, what are the casino companies gonna do
02:39 with BetMGM and Caesars?
02:41 But Bet365 out here,
02:43 look, they have more than $2 billion on the balance sheet.
02:47 They are not afraid to spend money
02:49 and they can make a move whenever they want to.
02:53 They can really come out,
02:54 they could start carpet bombing the market
02:56 with promotions if they wanted to.
02:58 They could make this upcoming March Madness season,
03:02 just, they could own it if they wanted to.
03:04 I don't think they will.
03:05 I think they're obviously gonna take a more judicious
03:09 approach to spending their money, but they could.
03:12 And I'm not gonna be surprised if we start to see
03:15 Bet365 really starting to make a move,
03:19 especially if we start to see more iGaming
03:22 getting legalized around the country as well.
03:25 We all know that sports betting
03:26 will bring the customers in,
03:28 iGaming is where you truly make the money.
03:31 So, really encouraging report from Bet365.
03:34 You know, they wound up with a loss for the year,
03:39 and they had profited the year before,
03:41 but at this point, you know,
03:42 they called it out in their earnings.
03:44 They just said, you know, we're entering new markets,
03:46 tie initial investment, but we think it's gonna work.
03:49 So, we're gonna keep watching Bet365.
03:52 I'm ready to see some make the major moves though.
03:54 (upbeat music)
03:57 (bells chiming)