Fantasy Sports Coalition's Strategy Amidst State Bans
Category
🥇
SportsTranscript
00:00 (upbeat music)
00:03 - All right, what's the latest
00:04 in this Fantasy Sports Coalition?
00:06 I know that some states have ruled them not eligible
00:10 to participate in the states that they're in
00:12 and they've come back in different ways.
00:13 It feels like this is one of these ongoing battles
00:15 that'll never end.
00:16 - Yeah, the Coalition for Fantasy Sports,
00:20 which essentially represents all those companies
00:23 that offer the product you're talking about,
00:24 the Pick'Em product, a lot of states have come out
00:26 and either banned or really come out against
00:29 and enforced actions against.
00:30 They appointed this guy JT Foley,
00:33 a long time government relations executive
00:36 with Las Vegas Sands to be their first executive director.
00:39 Now, normally we wouldn't be spending much time
00:41 on a lobbying group hire,
00:43 but what Foley said in his press release
00:46 that was really poignant and it's clear
00:48 that it signals a major pivot,
00:50 not just for this group and these companies,
00:51 but in this battle overall.
00:53 He has experienced lobbying in states like Texas,
00:57 Florida and New York quite successfully on the gaming side
01:01 and was also instrumental in getting the Las Vegas Raiders
01:05 to move to Las Vegas.
01:06 He helped secure the funding for that stadium.
01:08 So this is a guy with a lot of experience,
01:11 a lot of connections that this fantasy group is now adding.
01:14 Now, they spent the last year sort of trying to work
01:17 with regulators, negotiate with regulators,
01:20 figure out how they could get
01:21 these controversial Pick'Em games,
01:23 which a lot of states have deemed
01:24 as sort of de facto prop betting.
01:26 How they could get them to stay,
01:28 they didn't have much success in that department.
01:30 They moved in a lot of cases to free to play versions,
01:33 peer to peer versions,
01:34 versions that make the companies a lot less money.
01:36 So what I have been hearing kind of on the ground
01:39 in this whole debate debacle for a while
01:42 is that they were gonna try to move to get new laws passed
01:45 next year when the state houses come back together
01:47 to make laws.
01:48 It's really hard to get laws passed, obviously,
01:50 but if you have a guy like this on your side,
01:52 it could be a very big help,
01:54 a very big start in the right direction for them.
01:57 Essentially, regulators had been kind of,
02:00 it had been left up to them to figure out
02:02 whether these products are sports betting or not.
02:04 So now these companies are confident that,
02:05 hey, if we get a law passed that says it's not sports betting
02:08 then the regulators will have their hand tied, we'll be safe.
02:11 So this is sort of a major pivot
02:13 in a lot yet to come for next year,
02:15 but very big hire by this fantasy lobbying group for sure.
02:19 - Yeah, no, I agree.
02:21 All right, let's close it out here.
02:22 I know that you guys have been doing some research
02:24 in terms of who is specifically betting on sports
02:27 and the age groups they're made up of.
02:29 And what did you find when you guys did this research?
02:32 - Yeah, I've got to shout out our data and policy analyst,
02:37 Eric Ramsey, who just did a really great job
02:39 deep diving into all these agency reports
02:42 and financials from different sports betting companies,
02:45 but found over the past 12 months that roughly 60%
02:49 of all players and all the money spent on online gambling
02:53 came from millennials, which was sort of surprising to me
02:56 because I know there's a lot of,
02:58 a lot of the times when you talk about the money
02:59 it's older people betting or sharp bettors
03:02 that I would guess would trend towards
03:04 older than my generation.
03:06 Gen X was the most valuable customer base for operators
03:09 spending about $360 on average every month on the apps,
03:13 but pretty interesting too, when you talk about Gen Z,
03:16 there's 57,000 customers versus baby boomers,
03:19 only 5,000 customers per month,
03:21 but baby boomers actually outspent them by about 20%.
03:24 So while not a big customer base,
03:26 it's still really valuable money-wise for them.
03:29 Also very interesting, some things that he uncovered
03:31 in the report is FanDuel pretty much accounted
03:33 for half of all the money and half of all the customers
03:35 in the space while DraftKings is trending downwards
03:38 with about 25% in each category.
03:41 So usually we talk about them kind of competing one and two,
03:44 but it seems like FanDuel has kind of taken the lead
03:46 over the past month.
03:47 And then as well, talking about regions,
03:51 FanDuel has been very dominant in the rest of the country.
03:53 So it's a great report.
03:54 You should go to legalsportsreport.com, check it out.
03:57 (upbeat music)
03:59 (bells chiming)