FanDuel Group Senior Director of Product”¯Garreth”¯Core expects “sportsbook” to remain the buzzword of U.S. gaming in 2023, as the U.S. sports-betting market continues to mature.
Speaking to CDC Gaming a week ahead of his appearance at the SBC Summit in Barcelona, Core said U.S. sports betting and igaming are still in their infancy, with many years of evolution yet to unfurl.
He said while commentators are mainly concerned with the opening up of new states, it is also important to consider the total addressable market of the states that have already gone live.
“We’re penetrating a small percentage of each state. And I don’t mean FanDuel when I say that. I mean the whole industry. There’s so much growth for existing states to come in,” he said.
Core will speak about the opportunities in the U.S. at a panel session titled “U.S. Market Entry – Entering the Second Wave of Sports Betting and iGaming” at 11:30 a.m. on September 22, during next week’s SBC Summit in Barcelona.
The session will cover the biggest challenges facing international sports-betting and igaming businesses trying to enter the U.S.’s unique state-by-state environment.
Chief among these challenges, according to Core, is the pure cost of entry: $50 million for New York and up to $100 million for California, if it becomes legal there. That’s before any other costs.
Then there is the enormous burden of developing tech specific to each state’s regulations. A one-size-fits-all tech stack is insufficient in the U.S., where legislators expect operators to have their software and hardware on the ground within that state.
“There’s so much growth in existing states to come in, people to get used to sports betting as we educate them, which is a massive part of it,” Core adds.
“While everyone focuses on the new states, it’s important that we all stay focused on the states that we have – penetrating those states a bit better, getting people into sports betting, and making it part of the U.S. mainstream, because it’s still only an infant.”
Core believes that there is vast scope to expand the U.S. market beyond today’s sports fans, who may have been familiar with aspects of betting before 2018. He believes the real opportunity lies with those who may haven’t considered betting before, or perhaps who find the odds too confusing, but enjoy attending sports events.
“To me, the opportunity for the industry is in how we simplify the product. And then open it up to more of a customer base. Remove the barriers of entry through products, make it simple to use and understand,” he explains.
“How do you create a safe long-lasting industry that can be viewed almost like a Netflix subscription? Or like any other form of entertainment and subscribe to it on a monthly basis? How do we almost get viewed, in the customer’s eyes, as just being another or subscription or form of entertainment?”
It’s a long game to move gambling from its roots as a vice industry to a mass form of entertainment, but arguably, platforms like FanDuel, which pivoted into gambling from fantasy sports betting, may already have that crossover in their DNA.
