BetWay Bypasses Massachusetts Market, Leaving DraftKings Dominant
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00:00 (upbeat music)
00:03 - Okay, let's go over to Massachusetts.
00:05 I remember it was probably about a year ago
00:07 we were talking about the rise of some of the other companies
00:11 not named FanDuel, DraftKings, MGM.
00:13 Betway was one of them, but what has happened here?
00:15 Because we spent so much time talking about them
00:17 and they're not even gonna be in Massachusetts.
00:19 Matthew, what happened here?
00:20 - Yeah, Betway is a company that has kind of,
00:23 I honestly, I'm not sure what their approach is
00:28 in the US, Craig, because they're live
00:30 in a bunch of states, right?
00:32 They're live in nine states and they're live in key states.
00:35 They're live in Jersey, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Virginia.
00:38 And I just don't know if now they're looking
00:43 at the Massachusetts market and they say,
00:46 there's no point.
00:47 It's dominated by DraftKings, right?
00:49 DraftKings is this Boston-based company.
00:52 They came out with a huge, you know,
00:54 bet with your local bookie kind of promo push
00:57 when Massachusetts launched.
00:59 And it just doesn't, it's not a very appealing market
01:04 to jump into, honestly, right now,
01:06 if you are one of those smaller companies.
01:08 And again, Betway, they are owned
01:09 by a publicly traded company, Digital Gaming Corporation.
01:14 They, you know, they have money behind them.
01:18 Super Group has money behind them
01:20 and they can do something more,
01:23 but they've gone live in these states
01:25 and they've always just been a smaller player.
01:29 So you have to wonder if Betway is gonna be one
01:32 of those brands that exits in 2024, is bought in 2024.
01:37 You know, they certainly are not making the splash
01:42 that I think they thought they were going to have.
01:45 And this isn't the first market where they pulled out,
01:47 Craig, before they even launched.
01:49 If you remember, they won a license in Illinois,
01:53 a $20 million license for mobile only sports betting.
01:57 They were the only company that was approved for it.
01:59 And then they said, no, thank you.
02:02 So Betway is a little bit of a question mark right now
02:07 to say the least.
02:09 What I also found interesting from the story
02:12 that our Mike Nazio wrote is that Bally Bet still says
02:17 that it intends to launch in Massachusetts.
02:19 And that is a bit of a head scratcher for me.
02:23 Bally Bet has not been going out to spend heavily.
02:27 They spent billions, literal billions of dollars
02:30 on their digital gaming product,
02:32 only to scrap most of it and write off a huge amount
02:36 of it as a loss.
02:37 And now they're working with Camby, third-party operator
02:40 who, you know, Camby partners with the sports books
02:43 who are maybe not looking to be the biggest
02:47 and baddest sports books out there
02:49 because the product is gonna be the same
02:51 across multiple brands, right?
02:53 But so Bally Bet saying that they still want
02:56 into Massachusetts is interesting.
02:59 You do have to look at Rhode Island.
03:01 They are going to be the only online casino operator
03:04 in Rhode Island.
03:05 So are they hoping that if they're in Massachusetts,
03:09 can they send out some promos?
03:12 Can they get some people over to Rhode Island
03:14 using their product?
03:15 They own the retail casinos in Rhode Island as well.
03:19 I have to assume that is what they're thinking.
03:21 I just don't know how that is truly going
03:24 to pay off for them.
03:25 But one thing's for sure, I'm not surprised
03:29 that Betway does not want to come into Massachusetts
03:33 at this point.
03:34 You know, a lot of the brands there are doing well,
03:38 but DraftKings is just absolutely dominating it.
03:41 (upbeat music)
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