SPORTS BETTING MARKET
FULL SPEED AHEAD Bill Pascrell, III, partner at Princeton Public Affairs Group, has also been a strategic gaming advisor and consultant across the US, Canada Europe and Australia. Here, he gives an overview of what we can expect to see in the US sports betting market this year. I think there are two verticals that are going to have a very good year in 2021. The first is esports. There’s been a lot of movement, legislators are coming in and out of session, and while they’ve been focused on COVID-19, I believe it’s only a matter of time before esports takes off in multiple jurisdictions, including New Jersey, which hasn’t fully embraced it yet although legislation is propping up there. There are about a dozen states where esports is starting to get some traction and I think we’ll have a good home for it next year. More importantly, the pièce de résistance I’m working on is fixed-odds horse racing. It’s going to be a bonanza in the new calendar year. I’m working in 10 states now, and probably five more by the end of 2020, and have just been to Mississippi and Texas. We’ve spoken with Governors and the legislators about the value of fixed-odds horse racing. There’s legislation that’s going to move rapidly in New Jersey. We’ve talked to Michigan, Oklahoma and Ohio to name a few, which are all exploring the power of fixed-odds horse racing. Part of it is horse racing is diminishing in the US with the old parimutuel tote system. It’s been struggling and year-on-year it’s 46 GAMINGAMERICA
been reducing 2 or 3%. If something doesn’t change soon then horse racing is going to become a thing of the past. Fixed-odds has a benefit in a couple of ways. First of all, before 1930, US horse racing was all fixed-odds. The tote parimutuel system was introduced in multiple states in the early 1930s then fixed-odds went away. The parimutuel system is antiquated, not innovative and it doesn’t capture the imagination of the younger punter, the 20 and 30-year-olds. The 21 to 39-yearolds are the bulk of sports betting and the fixed-odds horse race bet is similar to a sports bet, straight up with a spread fixed. We believe, much like what’s happened in New Zealand, Australia, London and Germany, fixed-odds is going to help stabilize the tote without diminishing it and then it’ll grow to where you’ll see bets where for every dollar bet, 70 cents will be on fixed-odds and 30 cents on the tote. We think that’s the direction it’s going in but it’s going to take legalization and regulation, and marketing, for the vertical to get to the predicted heights.
SPORTS BETTING WILL CONTINUE TO GROW Sports betting in the US is a monster. No one believed me when I
