Lucky General
Entain’s new CEO joins with a following wind
Gavin Isaacs has a decent story to tell as he does the investor rounds.
In +More: ESPN Bet NY launch delayed, Playtech and RSI strike a deal.
HG Vora partly bails out of PointsBet, sparks share price surge.
Startup focus is the provider of odds for lesser sports StatX.
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In turnaround
Relief rally: New CEO at Entain, Gavin Isaacs, has displayed impeccable timing, joining the company a week before it released a trading update that caused its shares to spike 10% at one point on Monday, as he began a week of investor meetings.
The shares eventually ended Monday up 8%+ after the company said in a brief trading update that it continued to make “strong progress,” with recovery in the UK & Ireland ahead of schedule
Meanwhile, the company noted BetMGM now had enhanced parlay and player prop offerings for the new NFL season courtesy of Entain’s Angstrom acquisition.
Jefferies analysts said the unscheduled update flagged “ongoing momentum.”
Vacuum cleaner: Isaacs’s appointment was announced in July, more than six months after former CEO Jette Nygaard-Andersen left under something of a cloud. In the intervening period the company was led by interim CEO Stella David, who now fulfills the role of company chair.
At the same time as Isaacs was announced, the company released an H1 statement that included positive noises about Q2.
This would appear to have been confirmed by Monday’s statement.
As one source noted, the vacuum at the company caused by the length of time it took to fill the CEO post proved how the “absence of leadership sometimes works wonders.”
Gavin and hasty: CBRE noted the lack of detail on any specific strategic direction from the gaming industry veteran now in the top seat at Entain.
But the team added the “successful changing of the guard and permanent CEO appointment should give investors incremental comfort.”
“The rebound story is just beginning,” the analysts suggested.
The Jefferies team agreed, saying that meeting shareholders and confirming ongoing momentum so early in the new CEO's tenure “delivers a highly constructive message.”
Shoulder to the wheel: Looking at the news about BetMGM and the utilization of Angstrom’s odds and trading capability, the CBRE team suggested the new features “should” allow BetMGM to improve its margin through more efficient pricing and increasing the mix of higher-margin bets.
This could enable the JV with MGM Resorts to “ultimately rake back some NGR share.”
🎉 A warm welcome for Isaacs at Entain
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+More
Sitting on the sidelines: ESPN Bet’s launch in New York has been held up by regulatory delays, according to a report from Covers, which suggested the company may not receive the green light from the New York State Gaming Commission until after a meeting scheduled for late September.
Wynn Resorts has announced an $800m offering of new debt. It will be used in part to pay off the $130m forfeiture to the DoJ in the recently settled unlicensed money transfer case, with the remainder going towards retiring debt due in 2025.
IGT has also tapped up the money markets, saying it will be offering euro-denominated notes which will go towards the repayment of $499m of old debt. The exact amount for the raise is yet to be announced.
MGM Resorts’ Osaka, Japan casino will see construction delayed for two months with work pushed back until after the World Expo 2025, which takes place in the city between April and October next year.
Playtech and Rush Street Interactive have entered into a strategic collaboration with the release of slots and live dealer content across RSI’s operations in New Jersey, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Ontario and Mexico.
Pop-up casino: Fifth Street Gaming has received approval for a two-day non-restricted gaming license from the Las Vegas City Council for use at the for sale Gold Spike and Oasis Hotel. The two days of gaming will take place on September 30 and October 1.
NFL week won
First down(load): FanDuel led the first week of the NFL download chart with a 34% YoY gain, as total downloads rose 17% YoY to 1.2m. The 426k of downloads represented 36% market share, in data provided by JMP.
The DraftKings total slipped YoY by 4% to 324k or 27% share, followed by BetMGM, which saw a 9% fall in downloads to 110k for a 9% share.
The biggest gainer was Hard Rock, which saw a six-fold increase in downloads to 109k, also a 9% share of the total market.
Penn/ESPN Bet was up nearly 200% to 65k downloads, joining bet365 on 5% share. Caesars was at 4% and Fanatics’ downloads were down 56% YoY to 2% share.
Switch on: Nielsen ratings showed viewership across the opening weekend up 14% over the first five TV windows of the NFL season.
Hold off: The team at Macquarie estimated that week 1 hold was down to 7% compared to the long-term average of 9%.
Early hits: The early data from the first weekend of the new NFL season suggested operators would be pleased, with total transactions up 73% YoY, according to data from geolocation provider GeoComply.
The data showed that from last Thursday night, total unique users grew by 3m to 10.9m, with users in pre-2022 states up 54% and 2022/23 states rising by 87%.
PointsBet HG Vora sale
Pointing the right way: PointsBet’s shares rose nearly 11% on Wednesday and are up over 25% so far this week after news emerged that hedge fund HG Vora appears to be selling down its holding in the company.
HG Vora sold a 4.6% chunk of PointsBet stock last week via a placement made on its behalf by Jefferies for a price of A$8m ($5.3m). It leaves the investor with a remaining 5% stub.
The Australian Financial Review said there were three institutional buyers lined up to take the stock.
Recall, in December last year the founders of Stake.com snapped up a 4% holding in PointsBet.
Earnings in brief
Gaming Realms: The licensed game provider of Slingo and its variants said H1 revenue rose 18% to £13.6m, helped by a 28% rise in content licensing to £11.2m. Adj. EBITDA was up 21% to £5.8m.
Over the period the company launched games with 22 new partners, including FanDuel in Pennsylvania and Connecticut and Fanatics in New Jersey, Michigan and Pennsylvania
Current trading was positive with licensing revenues up 33% in July and August.
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Challenger event
GeoComply has released some details of the participants at its Challenger event being held on the Monday of G2E at the Fontainebleau, with Bill Foley, the legend behind the Golden Knights, set to provide the keynote.
From his early days at the US Military Academy to leading multi-billion dollar companies, Foley “embodies the entrepreneurial spirit that drives innovation,” in the words of GeoComply’s co-founder and director David Briggs.
Line up: Foley joins a top-notch list of speakers, including Gustaf Hagman, co-founder and CEO at LeoVegas; Adam Wexler, founder and executive chair at PrizePicks; Omer Sattar, co-founder and CEO at Sightline Payments; Ishan Haque, executive and head of business at Shuffle; and Nicky Senyard, founder of Income Access.
This is a limited capacity event. RSVP today to save your seats.
Growth company investing
DubClub: The new platform that aims to connect regular punters with handicappers and betting experts has raised $7.5m in a Series A funding round led by Renegade Partners. The platform was founded by CEO Ryan Gaertner and fellow co-founders Andrew Daschbach and Lewis Burik.
Profluencer: David Sargeant has announced he is joining sports investment fund Profluence Capital as an investor/advisor. Profluence Capital was founded by Andrew Petcash and Mitch Baruchowitz.
Sargeant said in a LinkedIn posting he feels “now is the time to invest more directly in sport.”
Startup focus – StatX Sports
Who are you? Founded in Atlanta in 2022, StatX Sports is led by Shawn Tucker, CEO, and David Lu, CTO, who both previously worked for a $2bn hedge fund specializing in casino and sports-betting investments.
What’s the big idea? StatX was created to “fix the problem” of expensive, low-quality odds and data products for sports outside of the Big 5, such as cricket, women’s sports, combat sports and motorsports.
The problem exists, says Tucker, “because building non-core software products is expensive and risky, especially when you’re not a tech company.”
“We started with cricket because it’s the second-most popular sport on Earth,” he adds.
What they say: “We’ve built a platform from scratch using machine learning and AI to create pricing models. Our tech stack is modern and we’re using software to replace labor-intensive roles, so our cost to build is much lower than incumbents,” says Tucker.
“Most companies hire hundreds of traders to do things that software could do… AI and machine learning make it possible for startups to disrupt the sports data space.”
Funding backgrounder: StatX raised $600k in a pre-seed round in 2022, with backers including Parvinder Thiara, Ike Greenstein and David Grice.
Growth company news
Betting exchange Sporttrade has received its Virginia sports-betting license ahead of a planned October launch.
Omnigame has announced that former Playmaker Capital CEO and founder Jordan Gnat has joined the company’s board.
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Events calendar
Sep 24-26: SBC Summit, Lisbon
Oct 7-10: G2E, Las Vegas
Oct 21-24: World Lottery Summit, Paris
Nov 5: Gaming in Germany, Berlin
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