iGaming Daily

Jessica Welman (00:03.336)
One of the biggest sports betting scandals of the post -Baspa era is going to result in a professional athlete likely spending time behind bars. Is Jontay Porter just the unfortunate athlete who got caught, or is he an outlier in the regulated sports betting space? We're going to discuss Porter's guilty plea plus the exit of Betway from most US markets on today's episode of iGaming Daily. iGaming Daily is presented by Optimu, the number one CRM marketing solution for the iGaming market.

56 % of the EGR Power 50 personalized player experiences with OptiMove. And it's the summer doldrums. I know you want to change things up guys. So change things up. Sign up with OptiMove. Get a first free month when you buy using the link optiMove .com forward slash SBC. I am Jessica Wellman, editor of SBC Americas, joined by Meteor Manager Charlie Horner, who have you ever watched an NBA game in full?

Charlie (01:02.163)
I think so. I've definitely watched parts of NBA games, and I must admit, of the American sports, it's probably the one I've enjoyed the most. It's been the most exciting.

Jessica Welman (01:10.85)
I was with you watching your first NFL game and I was apologizing because it was a Thursday one and a real real not good game not good team so yeah the NBA has definitely more you know firepower on the on average like there's never a basketball game that you're like this is so

Charlie (01:30.494)
so fast -paced, so much action. Yeah, yeah, it's really fun.

Jessica Welman (01:34.262)
Yeah, unless you're Jontay Porter and you claim you have an eye injury and you need to sit down after like 30 seconds. Not so much action. So I believe we have talked this one through at least once, if not twice. But for those who don't remember, what did Jontay Porter do, Charlie?

Charlie (01:53.625)
So, Giontai Porter got himself into a little bit of trouble. A little bit of trouble. So he owed nefarious gambling debts, or, well, should preface this, allegedly.

Jessica Welman (01:57.999)
Smidge. Just a smidge.

Jessica Welman (02:07.528)
Alleged a big well actually he pled guilty so we know he did a lot of this stuff or at least is admitted claiming He did a lot of this

Charlie (02:15.554)
Yes, and yeah, we are not lawyers, as we always say on this edition of the podcast. Yeah, so he got into a little bit of bother with, in gambling debts and decided to get out of this by, well, match fixing, by telling his associates that he was going to withdraw from the game early.

and his associates then went on to place a parlay bet with a load of legs on the under, well yeah, a parlay prop bet, Which, well, he left the field after, well he left the pitch after, what was it, 30 seconds? The court, yes. Yeah.

Jessica Welman (02:53.406)
on his personal performance,

Jessica Welman (03:02.294)
The court, sorry. Yeah, after like a minute he was barely in, he didn't do anything. All of these unders, cash, and unsurprisingly a $60 ,000 same game parlay on a guy who barely is not like a superstar of the NBA, who left after a minute, certainly raised some eyebrows and they flagged that as suspicious activity, which led to where we are today.

I don't believe we discussed this part of it on the pod, but in related court cases, there are four different co -conspirators of Porter's who have all been indicted as part of this scheme, one of whom, because it's always a poker player, is apparently a poker player. I run with a good crowd, right? I don't know this particular man, but so Porter was in court yesterday and pled guilty to wire.

fraud is the technical term. Posted the quarter million dollars of bail, he has his freedom now until he is sentenced in December. The expectation, the court is, I think prosecutors are recommending he gets four years in prison. Theoretically, the judge could ignore that and maximum time on this is 20 years.

Typically with plea deals, the judge needs a really good reason to go against what the prosecution is saying they're fine with. He also is gonna owe a certain amount of money, and I'll be honest, this baffled my team a little bit yesterday. We were like, who does he owe the money to? you have this question as well?

Charlie (04:49.519)
Yeah,

This is interesting. he owes nearly $500 ,000 in different fines and fees and payments and things. So who is this going to? this to pay the court back for their time? Is this to the NBA for causing them trouble? It doesn't make sense.

Jessica Welman (04:58.666)
That's the estimate, yes.

Jessica Welman (05:13.718)
So it sounds, best I can tell, it's a little bit of both. So these fines, if I'm remembering, I think some of these guys in other kind of wire fraud cases that I've covered, the fine for breaking the law is usually six figures. You typically owe restitution to whoever you've wronged in this one.

However, based on the court complaint, the sportsbook flagged these bets before anybody could withdraw. So it's not like they have to pay whatever sportsbook back. However, I took to Twitter and just asked because I didn't know and someone pointed out that this would be breach of contract for his deal with the Toronto Raptors and potentially the NBA as well. So he would potentially need to pay back some of his salary or something like

So I believe that's how they get to 450 ,000, but I don't believe any of it is going to a sports book

Charlie (06:16.67)
Yeah that's interesting. Now you mention his employer it does make sense because they've invested in the value of him being able to perform on the court and well of course he's got a lifetime ban so he can't do that anymore.

Jessica Welman (06:29.142)
Yeah, also, know, lifetime ban was suspended for a couple months before the lifetime ban in season and wasn't able to be done. I mean, his annual contract is worth $400 ,000. So, you know, if you have half of that that you have to give back that you've been paid plus, you know, a hundred something thousand dollar fine and some fees, I can see how you're getting to 450 grand. So.

This, I always tell people, I'm like, the thing that scares me most about these cheating scandals is that it feels like we're watching an episode of like world's stupidest criminals. So do you think that he was, that there's, how widespread do you think this is? You know, do you think this guy was just a one -off idiot who got caught? I think it's fair

to say that, like it was a pretty dopey way to try to cheat the system. Or are people being more sophisticated about it and getting away with

Charlie (07:36.979)
Well, yeah, mean, don't tell your associates to bet on the under and then leave the court after 30 seconds or a minute. mean, at least leave it 10. I mean, it is a pretty easy way of getting caught. But on a more serious note, we are seeing these kind of scandals break out on a more regular basis over the last couple of years. It's only fairly recently that those five

NFL players who were formerly of the Detroit Lions. They were reinstated back into the NFL after breaking a gambling policy in there.

Jessica Welman (08:15.924)
Those guys, to be clear, they didn't bet on themselves, they didn't bet on the NFL, or actually did some of them, one or two of them did.

Charlie (08:25.861)
I some of them did, but it wasn't on a game that they were involved in.

Jessica Welman (08:28.532)
Yeah. And some of them were just like betting on, you know, hockey in the parking lot of the training facility. And that's what it's a big difference between rigging the game.

Charlie (08:37.501)
Sure. No, there's a big difference, but the concepts of just breaking gambling policy, it's becoming more widespread over the last few years since the repeal of PASPA. We're actually seeing it in European football as well. But I've always had the argument of, well, this is the job that the regulated market is supposed to do because it's being flagged up.

We have technology, we have groups like the IBIA, we have Prohibit now in the US, designed to make sure that people who aren't supposed to be betting aren't betting. But I would imagine that this is rumbling underneath the surface and there's probably going to be more players in the future who are caught up in this kind of trouble.

Jessica Welman (09:30.112)
Yeah, I mean, and if I'm remembering the Porter case correctly, some of his wagering was being done with an illegal bookie. So this is this would be going on either way. You know, this isn't something that PASPA created. But you did mention, you know, the regulators and this is kind of on them to to find and police. NCAA, we've talked about pushing for the elimination

individual player props at the college level. I am curious now that we have like a confession of an admission of guilt if you know some of the more what shall we call it proactive regulators like Ohio and Massachusetts are like okay well how do we stop this from happening again maybe

that you can't get 60 grand in profits down on a player who barely plays.

Charlie (10:33.157)
Yeah, I I could see a world where there are sort of stake limits on prop bets to stop this kind of thing. Whether people would agree with that or whether the wider industry would be on board with that, I'm not entirely sure. But yeah, the more proactive regulators, I'm sure, will be interested in that kind of measure.

Jessica Welman (10:53.438)
Yeah, we'll see what comes of it. Massachusetts meeting today, they meet, it feels like every day. They're not particularly discussing this topic, but I can't imagine a world where it comes up in the future. So we'll keep an eye on if other people are looking at restricting prop markets and whatnot on SBC Americas, you can check it out there. In the meantime, we're gonna take a quick break, come back and talk about the exit of Betway.

Jessica Welman (11:25.076)
Welcome back to iGaming Daily. Charlie, another day, another European operator being like, we tried, and leaving the United States for the most part. Surprises at all that Betway was calling it quits?

Charlie (11:39.989)
Not particularly. This has been a trend that's been going on for probably 12 months now of European operators who are scaling back their US operations. Betway were in, I think, nine states for their sports book, which is spread more widely than a lot of European operators in that sort of, maybe the mid -tier operator range.

Jessica Welman (11:53.353)
Nine,

Charlie (12:09.147)
And we've documented on the website and on the podcast how difficult it is to break into the top tier of operators in the US from a sports book position. mean, the top two are cemented and then you've got the best MGMs of the world who are in the tier below and then it feels like everybody else. It's really difficult. It costs a lot of money. There's not much money to be made. So it's not the most surprising thing in the world.

Jessica Welman (12:39.382)
Yeah, I mean, I don't think they really got their footing anywhere in terms of obtaining. I mean, they were part of that group of nine or 10 splitting that last percentage of handle. If you look at the states that they were into, not the most populous states, they could potentially choose from Arizona, Colorado, Indiana, Iowa, New Jersey, Louisiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Virginia. They had

pulled out of plans for Massachusetts, they withdrew their license in Illinois. So I think we kind of saw this was that they certainly weren't going to get any bigger, which is never a good sign for some of these companies as they try to make a dent in the United States. I'll be honest, I forget they were here most of the

Charlie (13:28.202)
which is very interesting really because they only closed the acquisition to buy the, I think it was Digital Gaming Corporation, the company who were running the Betway operations in the US. They only closed that deal, I think it was at the beginning of last year. So for them to close that deal and then review all of their operations and come to this decision in that short of a time.

really goes to show how difficult it is. And we've seen it with other operators as well. I Kindred rolled out their platform in a couple of states and then very quickly announced their intention to come out of North America entirely, which we must say that Betway aren't doing. But yeah, the speed of which these decisions are being made is quite stark.

Jessica Welman (14:20.404)
Yeah, you know, to be clear, they aren't leaving the entirety of the US or North America. They are keeping their online casino product spin in Pennsylvania and New Jersey. We've seen kind of this be mimicked by a couple other groups that are like, you know, we're gonna shut down the sports betting, but in the states where there's iGaming, we're gonna hang around a little longer.

In the case of like, when they just were like, were done altogether after attempting that. So it's interesting that there's room, it seems, for at least a dozen online casino operators to kind of live and make enough money because the margins are so much different and better. But we've kind of seen in the newest state launches that seven or eight is really

the extent of brands that are gonna be able to survive in a single state.

Charlie (15:20.279)
Yeah, I mean, you're absolutely right. It's so much easier to make money on the iGaming side because of those margins, but there simply aren't enough of those states for these companies to make the investment in rolling out the sports book further. The big example we always come to on the sports side is Massachusetts. That was supposed to be a really exciting market. I think they had 15 licenses available.

Jessica Welman (15:45.494)
dozens, dozens of applicants than they expected.

Charlie (15:49.545)
Yeah, and lo and behold, there's six. So it just goes to show that the US is not that exciting new emerging market that it was sort of touted to be all those years ago until more iGaming states are rolled

Jessica Welman (15:52.84)
Six now, yeah.

Jessica Welman (16:09.322)
I mean, it's exciting for some people. There are plenty of people who are very excited about how they're faring in the US. I think even the Caesars and the Bet MGMs of the world have to feel pretty decent about the chunk of change that they're making off sports betting. Justin Byers, our senior writer at SBC Americans and I were talking about, we got a few months of Kentucky back revenue finally reported. ESPN Bet is running.

Six.

out of seven, well now eight, because Circa launched. They're beating Fanatics and Circa, and they are losing to DraftKings, FanDuel, BetMGM, Bet365, and Caesars. So even ESPN Bet, which as a value prop compared to Betway, has a whole lot more going for it, is still running in sixth place. I think the problem with a lot of these European operators is

There's just nothing that stands out about them. With an online casino, you can get exclusive games. You can come up with unique ways to keep players in the pipeline. There's not that much flexibility with sports betting in terms of differentiating your product. Somebody tweeted, I'm not gonna remember.

Apparently the approach of doing what everybody else does but worse isn't working for Betway. And it isn't a testament to Betway, it's just a testament to these smaller operators without gigantic bankrolls to offer a bunch of promos or really invest in product that it's just, if you don't have something to add, it's gonna be really tough to succeed.

Charlie (17:58.134)
Yeah, the European player and the American player, they're just completely different. We have different ways of consuming sports. We have different sports that we enjoy. And so the way that we bet on those sports are naturally gonna be different. So just taking your European strategy and just copy and pasting it over to the Americas. Again, I'm not saying this is what Betway has done, but...

That sort of strategy is not going to be a winning one in the US when you look at it and most of the top tier brands are American.

Jessica Welman (18:35.504)
And Bet365 is the example of, they waited a long time to really get into this space until about a year ago. Now they're in and they're making a lot of headway in states. In states where we do see promo credit reported, they're spending. And I think that's the reason and the difference in these companies is that Bet365 has the bankroll to compete, whereas

the the bet ways of the world, the kindreds, all of those, Bettson, and even Betfred is wrapping up in Maryland. I wouldn't be surprised to see Betfred start to wind down and maybe they're going to be next on the chopping block until something a little more lucrative comes around. I think the last thing to make a point out on this, it's not cheap to be in these states.

You you have to pay licensing fees in every single state that you're in, plus renewal fees, and it's not just that huge upfront operator license, it's all these other licenses, and all of the compliance payments is a huge expense for people. So if you're not getting but like 0 .2 % of the market, it's just impossible to succeed.

Charlie (19:57.686)
No, absolutely. It's really tough. It's really, really tough. And we see how difficult it is to make money at the top end of the market. So at the bottom end of the market, it's going to be really, really tough. And I wouldn't be surprised if we saw more operators decide to leave the market in the next few months and years, really. Yes, it's tough.

Jessica Welman (20:19.872)
Yeah, we're about a month out from the start of kind of football season and it'll be interesting to see who is gonna tough it out for one more football season and see how things go or if we potentially lose somebody else before the fall. We will certainly be keeping an eye out on that on SBC Americas along with all the other latest news. Charlie, I know you have a story from SIS on SBC America, is anything else?

People should be checking out across the network from you.

Charlie (20:50.798)
Well, yeah, I'd like to highlight that SIS feature really because it's, they did a deal earlier this year with Genius Sports to distribute their competitive gaming suite of products. And we've spoken a lot about the potential of eSports betting in the US over the last few years. And Adam and Andy from SIS just go into a bit of depth

the potential there and how big of an opportunity that Genius Sports Deal is for the company. So if you are checking out SBC Americas, be sure to read that

Jessica Welman (21:30.198)
All right, we will make sure we throw a link in the description for that for people who want to check it out along with some news on Jontay Porter. In the meantime, Charlie and I are both out next week at conferences, but you should keep tuning in to all of our peers and friends for the latest gambling news on iGaming Daily.