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Happy New Year from iGaming Daily! We may be into 2025, but the gang covering the North American scene is still dwelling on 2024, so it's time to reflect on the past before we look ahead to the future and look at what the biggest stories of 2024 brought us on today's episode of iGaming Daily. iGaming Daily is brought to you by Optimo, the number one CRM marketing solution for the iGaming market, in 2024 and now again in 2025. I am Jessica Wellman, editor of SBC America, is joined by media manager Charlie Horner. Charlie, it's the new year, but I think we need to reflect first. So I hope you're willing to take a little jaunt down memory lane with me. Yeah, absolutely. I'm not quite ready to let go of 2024 just yet. And I'm looking forward to this. We're gonna recover from the holidays still, I think. So I'm glad we're not diving straight into new news. As we did last year, we each kind of... picked our three biggest stories or topics of the year. And we're gonna, in typical countdown fashion, countdown from three all the way to one. So let's just dive right in because there's a lot to discuss on this. We'll start with you. What was your number three story for 2024? Yeah, so I wanted to look at the... to sort of challenge a new brand in the market. So I wanted to see how Fanatics and ESPNBET were getting on during 2024. It was the first full year that both brands were sort of rolling out across the US. So I thought it'd be nice just to take a quick look at each of the brands and sort of see who's winning that battle of the new brands. I mean, I kind of have my vote, but I'm curious if you think one over the other is doing. particularly well. I think the general consensus is that Fnatic's probably taking the lead in this race. I mean, they're kind of rivaling BetMGM in a lot of ways. It was this slow rollout. We got these emails from them every couple of weeks. We switched this over. We switched that over. Although I say slow, I think that it was probably as fast as you could possibly do it. And now, you know, It feels very sudden, but they're really claiming like a nice chunk of market share. There was that period briefly in New Jersey where, you know, the rumor was that it was one really big VIP better helped to rally fanatics to like second or third in an online casino for the month. So I've been very impressed with what they've been doing and how much they've really risen. Whereas ESPN bet, it kind of feels like 601, half dozen of the other compared to Barstool. I don't really know that we're seeing. I doubt the people at Penn are thrilled with the results because I best I can tell. You tell me if I'm wrong. It's been pretty flat growth wise, right? Yeah, yeah. I mean, you could say we were saying this when the brand first launched, it's the second roll of the dice for Penn. Some could say it's the last roll of the dice in terms of in terms of getting this right with those sort of media activations. And yeah, I think when I was preparing, I think you could say around 3% market share. When the brand was launched, the big play was we want 20 to 25% market share. And of course, we're only sort of just over 12 months in, but still you would like to see a little bit more progress on that, on that front. But I just wanted to ask you, Jess. Just looking at the fortunes of the two brands, what do you think it is that's sort of taking Fanatics to that next level compared to ESPN, but where it's a little bit flatter? I will say I've been very impressed with the talent that Fanatics brought in. They really hired a lot of people with a lot of good experience in the industry, including one. Mike Hermelin, we may have talked about a little bit. I don't think he's anywhere in this rundown, so I gotta get his name in somewhere since we've dedicated so much time to that court case. I think they've developed a very good VIP program. We'll see how VIP programs are approached in the next couple of years. I think we're seeing the scrutiny come down on that, but I think that's really. where a lot of it is. I think a lot of it is product though. They put a lot of time in fine-tuning that product and I actually bet on Fanatics. That's the one app I just happen to have and I like the interface. I like the fan cache and I'm a fan. So I can see the appeal to it and we should have in the coming couple of weeks, Tom Nightingale spoke to fanatics about this growth. So we'll have an interview that on SBC Americas imminently. ESPN bet I will give them one kind of throw them one bone account linking only happened in November with the ESPN app and the ESPN bet app. I open that ESPN app daily. I think that's the case for just about any sports fan in the United States. So Maybe that is kind of the big, you know, they've been hammering that home and earnings calls. They think that'll be a big shifter that maybe now we'll see a little bit more movement. But I think we have a winner of these two. Absolutely. All right. My number three, I think is going to potentially we'll be talking about this time in twenty six. The growing debate on whether or not sports books should be limiting betters. This. It started out as a Massachusetts thing and I think we all know Massachusetts can do some niche stuff that other people don't do, but it got a lot of attention. Spanky, the better behind America's Better's Voice. I feel like I always get the S's in that one wrong. Is it plural plural? Anyways, ABV. Went to Wyoming, made a similar pitch that was discussed at the regulators meeting that was held at Nickelgeese in December. And I think, you know, remember operators just kind of hid in the hole on this first one and didn't even show up for the meeting. And now you're seeing a lot of mainstream media articles talking about this. The throttling of betters did come up briefly in the federal hearing from Senator Adam Schiff. Again, there weren't operators on the panel, so nobody really said anything beyond like, yeah, that's a thing. But I think the fervor around it is growing. Yeah, it's a really interesting one. And yeah, we all sort of had a little chuckle at the start of the year when all the operators sort of, well, declined to show up to the first. first roundtable session, but eventually they did join the Massachusetts gaming commission to chat. And it was really interesting how the discussion sort of evolved into, eventually the proposal was that we might have to ban in-game betting in Massachusetts. That was an interesting line that came out of that one. Yeah, people don't like in-game betting. I mean, they're like, it's like crack. There's a lot of like drug comparisons on that one. I mentioned the federal hearing that happened in December. We're going to roll this into my number two. My number two is the rise in interest, we'll say, from federal lawmakers when it came to sports betting this year. Generally, this is left to the states, but I think we saw several instances that indicated that may not always be the case. A lot of this is smoke, no fire. These bills I doubt are gonna go anywhere, but we had the GRID Act regarding taking the federal excise tax on handle and using it for problem gambling. We had the SAFEBET Act, which is like a very overarching federal framework that would limit a whole lot of stuff related to sports betting and really change the industry. And then we had kind of increasing calls from various groups, the NCAA, the AGA. saying like, if you want to get involved federally, please do, especially cracking down on offshore operators. And of course, now they're kind of pushing maybe to crack down on sweepstakes operators too. Yeah, I mean, we listeners will remember our last show of 2024 when we spoke about the federal hearing that happened in December. And we kind of made the point that. know this interest is growing and there is definitely appetite to do things you know the grit act and the safe bet act i think there was the betting on our future act before those two as well so there's definitely an appetite and it's growing to do something at the federal level but the new administration comes into play at the end of this month we just have to wait and see what that new administration wants to do if anything on this on this uh debate so uh i think definitely, you know, open to fate and chance and political will. Yeah, I mean, I'm not, I'm less inclined to believe Congress does something, but I think federal agencies may be looking into some things might be something that you see. The only thing I will say maybe we see, I think this actually got introduced last month was a ban on election markets, which is somewhat tangential to what our industry is. but something that certainly got a lot of play this past November. So we shall see. All right, moving on to your number two. Yeah, my number two, this is another one that's sort of been bubbling under the surface for a little while now, but it's the sort of departure of some of these smaller operators, some of the European operators from the US market. just sort of citing the fact that it costs too much and they're not getting enough market share. So some of the more notable ones in 2024 was Kindred taking their Unibet brand out of the US. The Supergroup took that way out of the US. 888 ended their Sports Illustrated venture and even Bettson ended their. B2C operations in the US, though I do still believe they're doing B2B operations there as well. So it's a trend that's been ongoing for some time. I think the US is not that sort of land of opportunity that it once was with the duopoly of Fanjul and DraftKings just sweeping up so much market share and then the sort of tier two brands like BetMGM and Caesar's having that huge land base. presence on their side that it's very, very tough for some of those European operators to sort of get a clear foothold in the market. I will say I think a lot of these European operators just thought, we know how to run a sports book, we're going to come in here, it'll be fine. And I think certainly as we look to Brazil, now that Brazil is launching, I think they kind of learned from the mistakes they made here that you've got to be somewhat local in what you're doing. Meanwhile, like, Bet365 took a long time to really roll out in the US, but they also put a lot of money behind what they were doing in terms of promo credit and stuff like that to win people over. I think everybody just underestimated how much competitors are willing to spend in the customer acquisition battle, which led to a lot of market exits. But I think, too, so many of these states kind of revisiting tax structures and... upping taxes, changing kind of the rules of play. You saw several operators leave Massachusetts in particular just because it was just a very difficult state to succeed in. You've got like a 20% tax rate, you've got a seven-figure licensing fee, and it was just too difficult for them. WinBet, I think, is another huge one that really offlined and told you even with land-based in a state like Massachusetts, you're not going to... be successful. So I think that consolidation is probably going to continue. There's people, you know, you just run out of runway at a point. And as we see these last states kind of look at sports betting bills, so far what we've seen are bills where it's like South Carolina's you, you've got to be operating in five other states to come in to South Carolina. I mean, that's pretty prohibitive. That takes the list down substantially right there. So I think just the barrier to entry is getting higher and higher. Yeah, it's tough out there. And you know, there is, there is, we mentioned the sports betting here and there is concerns about the FanDuel and DraftKings sort of duopoly that's sort of cemented itself over the last few years. Let's see if there are competitors out there who can sort of break that. We shall see. Something to keep an eye on this year. All right. On to... Drum roll please, our number one stories of the year. Charlie, I will let you go first. Thank you. Yeah, I chose the sort of crackdown on the sort of offshore operators like, like Bovarda. I think half of the US states have issued cease and desist letters to, to Bovarda in particular throughout 2024 and it feels like states are really starting to... crack down on those offshore operators. There's a lot of pressure from the likes of the AGA and others to do this. And I think states are starting to sit up and take notice and start taking action against some of these people who are alleged to be doing very illegal things. Yeah, I think Michigan really led the way on this one. You saw that they were effectively delivering cease and desist and you created a model for people to replicate. You know, they put these letters out, they made announcements about it, and then other regulators followed suit. So they are up to, I believe, 16 states, Bovada has excluded itself from. Not all of these have worked. You know, Mississippi has sent a letter, they're sending another letter, they sent another letter last month, but haven't got a response. A funny thing I learned at Nickelgeese from one of the Tennessee regulators, she was like, we learned that Bovada doesn't accept US mail in Garcela. I was like, I don't even think you were allowed to reject the mail. I didn't think that was an option. But they had to come up with other ways to get this cease and desist delivered so that they would even see it. So they managed to do that. They did try to fine them. They did not pay the fine, but they did pull out of Tennessee. So I think it's interesting to see state regulatory bodies work with their AGs after years of just begging the DOJ to do something and them not doing anything. You know, you would have thought Black Friday was 13 years ago at this point. I am truly surprised that there was this raid on poker and we haven't had any raid like it since, given, especially now, the attention that is on sports betting, the lack of kind of protections around sports betting, you can crack on the regulated market as much as you want, but the unregulated market is to blame too. So I'd be curious if the new administration, the DOJ is more interested in doing this. Like I said, I think an agency is more likely to do anything than Congress. But yeah, I was impressed to see state regulators kind of band together and actually get this group to leave. Yes. This is the sort of positive regulatory action that we want to see. And yeah, as an industry or as a society, we're very quick to criticize bodies, regulatory bodies and authorities, but I think it's also right that we point out when they're doing good things. So yeah. Yeah. And my number one is a similar set of regulatory action, which is the attack on sweeps and... the whole just yesterday's news of the DFS plus industry, who has to be sending many a fruit basket and flower bouquet to VGW and Flip and the like. I believe my number one was last year, the DFS stuff, and now feels like eons ago, but it was only this year that Florida ordered DFS operators out of the state. It wasn't that long ago, but now it just sweeps. sweeps and more sweeps. We've seen a lot of this playing out in the courts where there are various lawsuits against not only operators but payment processors, Google and Apple. We did a podcast last year with attorney Bill Gantz on sweeps that I would encourage all of you to listen to where he kind of explains why he thinks the courts are not really where this is going to play out in 2025. because just more often than not the person suing lacks standing to bring suit. And we've seen plenty of these tossed arbitration, tossed for lack of jurisdiction, that sort of thing. But I mean, it's not stopping people. They do not shut up about it. The Victor Roka webinars will continue into this year. I think he's got one more on his. California sweeps crusade, the AGA spoke out against sweeps and in the federal hearing provided testimony suggesting they should crack down on sweeps. Nickel-G's model I gaming legislation proposed a, a section that just explicitly outlaws sweeps. And we'll see if now that we're in the new year, new legislative sessions, lawmakers in states think about introducing bills that kind of refine the definition of what sweepstakes law is. Yeah, I mean, it's 100% being the biggest story of 2024. I think particularly in the back half of the year, I think it was the only thing that was... At G2E, I swear that's what we talked about. Yeah, G2E, yeah. And I'd imagine it would have taken up a lot of attention at Nickel G's as well. I think, like you say, Jess, this one's going to rumble on into 2025. There's, you know, the spotlight will be put ever... ever more onto these companies. I mean, although I do say that, our number one story last year was DFS Plus, and we're not talking about that right now. And you know what? Like they pivoted to that peer-to-peer product and they're doing fine. So, you know, it might be much ado about nothing. We don't know. I've heard some rumblings that state attorney generals might get involved because that's the thing is like. People forget the regulators can poo this all they want. The regulatory bodies for gaming in states do not have the ability to arrest people or charge them with crimes. So you have to get buy-in from your state attorney general or the Department of Justice or something like that. You're actually going to have the government take legal action against somebody. So. I'm curious where this goes. I'm very, very curious what state lawmakers kind of have in store for this. Again, to go back to this Bill Gantz interview, what he's kind of pointed out is these are fundamentally social casinos with a sweepstakes element to them. So I don't know if there's kind of a closer look at these freemium social casinos that... plenty of people in the industry are involved in, because they're essentially the same product just with an augmented element to it. So certainly gonna be interesting. It's gonna keep my PACER account active and all of my lawsuits. I actually put together a legislative tracker so that I could keep track of all of the court cases that I'm looking at, not just in sweeps, but everything. And we're at like 24 for the moment of active cases at the state and federal level. And that's not even all of the, I can't, there's probably a dozen sweeps class actions and I can't keep track of all of them. Your law degree's in the post, right? Yeah, exactly. I'm gonna take the LSAT in 2025. You know, that does lead perfect segue though. We have our biggest stories of the year, but I think we kind of have like our favorites too, the ones that maybe we enjoyed writing or we enjoyed speaking about and mine. did stem from the endless hours I spent on court documentation sites where we had an unnamed John Doe sue Draft Kings alleging that they essentially like conspired with the pro better Spanky to share this man's personal info so that Spanky and another man could extort him, which is just quite a sentence to begin with and I mean, I'll just say it. I was kind of proud of myself that we were the outlet that figured out who that John Doe was, which was Stephen Jacobs, who that case is still pending. They're in a battle over discovery at the moment. But one of our most read stories of the year and one that I think people certainly had a lot of interest in, anytime Spanky's name get invoked, but also just like nice and dramatic, right? Yeah, it's great. And I love that we got the scoop on that. So, you know, well done Jess, that's great. I'm glad, again, every once in a while, I'm proud of myself that all I do is just lurk on court websites all day. Mine was a fun one, but yours is a... I had already forgotten about this, believe it or not, but when I read yours, I was like, oh, yours is better. Yeah, yeah. I went for the sort of whirlwind couple of weeks in the summer when DraftKings announced that it was going to place a surcharge on a... player winnings from 2025. I think they did this because several states, it was a way of combating higher tax rates in certain states like New York and Pennsylvania and Illinois in particular. I think that DraftKings and Jason Robbins thought that they would be a blazing a trail. Louded innovators. Yeah. Instead, it was like a fever dream. I think that's why I don't even remember it because it just came and went so quickly because people hated it so much. Players hated it. Analysts hated it. I think everyone on social media. I think some regulators were like, I don't think that's legal. Like, I don't think you can even do that in our state. It was... I don't think anything has been so universally hated in gaming in a long time. Props to DraftKings though for backpedaling. Just saying like, our bad. We won't do that again. It was, I must say, it was merely hours after Flutter's earnings call in which Peter Jackson said, yeah, we've taken a look at the backlash and we're definitely not going to do that. Yeah, it was a lot of like, I mean, if they want to, go for it. I think they really thought somebody would follow suit and that certainly did not happen. All right, I'm glad we're kicking off 2025 just like 2024 by going excessively over our length of time on this podcast. But Charlie, I'm looking forward to another year of all of our takes and crazy stories. I hope that we can keep it up in 2025. So happy new year to you. Happy new year to the audience. Get ready because we've got a lot on the plate for you coming up 2025 on iGaming Daily.