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1. TIPICO PLOTS MAJOR U.S. OSB PUSH
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Tipico has been relatively quiet in the U.S. market to date, with a ~0.2% OSB GGR share in NJ and CO, per our proprietary tracking.
- That was partly by design, as the German OSB market leader has built up its in-house U.S. platform over the last two years and fine-tuned its product.
- The time for quiet may be over however. The operator posted its best-ever score in our forthcoming 4Q22 app testing report—finishing 10th out of 39 apps—and is eyeing populous, sports-crazed OH as the place to turn on the marketing taps.
- Tipico has an OH marketing budget in the “many tens of millions,” per channel checks, albeit still below U.S. OSB market leaders FanDuel and DraftKings.
- Tipico’s marketing ambition can already be seen in its 12% share of paid social media impressions in OH in the week before launch, per Pathmatics data. That was fourth in the market and just behind BetMGM at 13%.
- Tipico was also involved in the Bernie Kosar betting controversy and is bringing in actor Jeremy Piven for some local above-the-line marketing.
- Combine that ad spend with an improving product and launching on Day 1 of the market, and we could see a case for Tipico capturing mid single-digit GGR share in OH by the end of the year.
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2. TRENDING UP/TRENDING DOWN
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Trending up: Catena Media’s share price. $CTM jumped nearly 25% this week after the company announced it was assessing options for the sale of its remaining assets, including its North American business. Catena previously sold off key European affiliate assets to GIG. The super-affiliate could be a good candidate to be taken private given it is currently valued at less than 5x 2022 EBITDA.
Trending down: PlayUp. PlayUp has seen a second potential acquisition in the last 18 months fall through, this time when IG Acquisition Corp announced it would not be proceeding with its $350mm takeover of the operator. IGAC said it wasn't able to execute on the deal by the February 5 deadline, in part due to PlayUp’s inability to provide certain audited financial statements on time.
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3. WILL BET365 LOOK TO U.S. FOR GROWTH?
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Bet365’s latest financial results showed a business struggling somewhat for growth, with revenue for the year to March 2022, up +2% y/y vs. Flutter’s +9%.
- With the operator seeing secular slowdown in the UK and Western Europe and increased competition in Asia, the U.S. could well provide the short-term revenue growth prospects it needs.
- The operator was up to 4th in our forthcoming 4Q22 U.S. OSB app rankings, suggesting it is successfully localizing its global sports product.
- It also announced a market access deal for PA this week, just days after launching in its third U.S. state: OH.
- We believe bet365 could be in 10+ U.S. states by the end of the year and challenging for top-5 in market share in multiple states.
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Partner
Eilers & Krejcik Gaming
@AKrejcik / Linkedin
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5 Corporate Park, Irvine, California 92606, USA
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