Betway to Exit US Market Amid Low Profitability Outlook

  • 3 months ago
Transcript
00:00Supergroup, the Betway owner, has decided, and this was kind of hinted at back at the
00:08beginning of the year or even late last year when our Matt Waters kind of was doing some
00:12digging into earnings reports and stuff, and Supergroup kind of hinted at the idea that
00:18Betway would be pulled out of North America.
00:21And sure enough, today we get an announcement that Betway's going to leave the nine states
00:27they are live in just because, as the CEO put it in the statement, we just don't see
00:32a long-term path to profitability.
00:35And I mean, in the nine states they're in, they've got pretty small market share, single
00:39digits, low single digits.
00:41And so yeah, that just kind of shows how, you know, DraftKings, FanDuel, BetMGM, Caesars,
00:47the big names, they've got plenty of kind of market share to make things work and kind
00:52of fix things around.
00:53But when you're playing at numbers that low and you're a big European operator, it's not
00:58so great.
00:59I mean, this is at least the second big European operator that we've seen pull out of North
01:04America late last year.
01:06Unibet or Kindred pulled Unibet out of North America.
01:09And so it just kind of goes to show you that just because you're big in Europe doesn't
01:13mean you're going to be successful in the U.S.
01:17And that is to say, I mean, they had a huge deal with the NHL.
01:20If you watch the NHL playoffs, you saw the Betway logo all over.
01:24To your point, soccer.
01:25I mean, even Ted Lasso, one of the main teams in there was Betway.
01:29So they got lots of brand exposure in North America and just have not been able to move
01:34very much of a needle here.
01:36And so they'll be getting out fairly soon, I would expect.
01:42They are going to maintain their online casino operations here.
01:45They're live in Pennsylvania and New Jersey.
01:47They see much more potential there.
01:49They said they'll expand in markets as opportunities arise there.
01:52Now, Sahara Bats, to your point, is interesting there.
01:56They were only live in Arizona.
01:59They were the partners of the Arizona Coyotes because the same owner owned the company and
02:07the sportsbook.
02:08And with the Arizona Coyotes selling off their assets and the team going to Utah and an inactive
02:15franchise effectively being abandoned by the owner recently because of some, you know,
02:21he had hoped to revive it within the next five years with a new stadium or a new arena.
02:26And I would assume that would have kept Sahara Bats kind of brand alive, but they're leaving.
02:32They never got much of a market share in Arizona either.
02:36And so this is, you know, it was kind of expected, I think, once we knew that the Coyotes were
02:40no more, that Sahara Bats would also be no more.
02:43What is interesting is Betway was also live in Arizona and we're in the midst of an open
02:47Arizona license process.

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