Flutter Fires Amy Howe, Kalshi’s Valuation Skyrockets in This Week’s Bingos & Busts
Amy Howe's ouster and Kalshi's latest injection of capital lead the week's gambling industry news.
This week in gambling saw the head of the leading sportsbook dismissed, another ballooning of a top prediction market’s valuation, and anti-climactic news for horse racing fans.
Here’s our take on some headlines that surfaced around the industry.
Bust: Flutter Dismisses Amy Howe
Firing your top executive is rarely a sign that things are going well, and as sportsbook growth slows, pressure from prediction markets mounts and its stock price craters, Flutter has shown FanDuel CEO Amy Howe the door. President Christian Genetski takes over for Howe, who made as graceful an exit as possible after a remarkable five-year run. The parent company promises better days ahead, readying an improved sportsbook product for the World Cup and NFL while getting involved on the market-making side of prediction markets, but it’s clear its US-facing brand is in a state of transition.
Bingo: Kalshi Valued at $22 Billion
Love ‘em or hate ‘em, there’s no denying Kalshi is a financial juggernaut, announcing on Thursday a $1 billion funding round that values the company at $22 billion. Each of Kalshi’s three capital raises over the last seven months have been at double its previous valuation, and, on paper at least, the prediction market operator has grown tenfold in less than a year. The legal future of prediction markets is cloudy, and with sports accounting for ∼85% of trading volume on the site and parlays claiming an increasingly larger share of the business, there are still plenty of doubters. Clearly, though, bulls abound.
Bust: Kalshi’s Latest Effort To Spin Data Falls Flat
The Wall Street Journal dropped a report early this week confirming something we already knew: the vast majority of users lose money on prediction markets and the winners are a concentrated few. Per the report, 67% of profits on Polymarket go to 0.1% of accounts, and Kalshi handed its own numbers to the WSJ showing there was one profitable trader per 2.9 users over the past month. While Kalshi pushes the narrative that its users’ profitability compares favorably to that of day traders, options traders and sports bettors, to many industry observers, prediction markets are still just thinly-disguised gambling sites.
Bingo: Michigan Senate Stymies Proposed Tax Hike
Gov. Gretchen Whitmer tried borrowing neighbor Illinois’ idea to slap a 25- or 50-cent tax on every bet placed in Michigan. Lawmakers, so far, have rejected the proposal, excluding it from the Democratic-controlled state senate’s $88.1 million budget advanced last week. The impact of the unprecedented per-wager tax in Illinois? Surcharges for bettors and fewer wagers placed. We applaud Michigan legislators for recognizing that raising revenue should not be as easy as tightening the screws on sportsbooks and their customers.
Bust: Golden Tempo Opts Out of Preakness
Major kudos to trainer Cherie DeVaux for becoming the first woman in history to saddle a Kentucky Derby winner – and to bettors who cashed massive tickets with the 23-to-1 Golden Tempo during a week of record handle at Churchill Downs – but for the second year in a row, we head into the Preakness Stakes with no chance at a Triple Crown winner, a dynamic that’s becoming more common than rare. In fact, no Derby runners are slated to compete in Maryland next weekend. Sports Business Journal reported recently that starting in 2027, the Preakness may be pushed back a week – and what’s best for the animal should always come first – but for now, horse racing fans are deprived of some excitement.
Bingo: Netflix Takes Wraps Off New Casino Drama
We’re not necessarily expecting Casino or the poker classic Rounders, but when we see names like Martin Scorsese, Brian Koppelman and David Levien attached to a new show about the “high-stakes, sharp-elbowed present-day Las Vegas casino business”, count us in. Scorsese executive produces, and Koppelman and Levien pen the yet-to-be-named drama that stars Oscar Isaac (BEEF S2) as hotel/casino boss Robert “Bobby Red” Redman. The eight-episode series is expected to debut on Netflix this year.
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