Business By The Books: Genius Sports Joins Betting Integrity Association


Written By

Updated on

sports betting

Genius Sports is beefing up its sports betting protections as it adds more integrity tools.

The sports betting data supplier is now an associate member of the International Betting Integrity Association. The group is the “largest customer account sports betting integrity monitoring body in the world,” according to Wednesday‘s release.

“Our partnership with the IBIA will provide us and our partners with greater transparency over global betting patterns, helping to identify, manage and prevent any integrity threats,” said Simon Martyn, director of integrity and rights enforcement at Genius.

Genius, IBIA will share betting info

The agreement essentially gives Genius another layer of protection when it comes to watching for suspicious activity.

Genius and IBIA will share information relating to suspicious bets. The agreement could also lead to a “collaboration on wider anti-match-fixing activities globally.”

The optics of the deal may be just as important as the deal itself, as there have been multiple high-level betting issues in sports this year:

Sports betting stocks up on Florida news

DraftKings, ESPN Bet partner Penn Entertainment and FanDuel parent Flutter all had a strong Monday off the news that the Supreme Court will not hear the Florida sports betting case.

There is not a direct correlation right now since Hard Rock Bet is the only operator in Florida right now. But that could change, Hard Rock CEO Jim Allen told LSR, saying revenue-sharing deals could see other brands enter the state.

The decision could also serve as a catalyst for tribes in other states without legal sports betting. All three saw at least 6% growth:

FanDuel has outage on busy Saturday

FanDuel relayed a significant issue just before 1 pm Eastern Saturday as its customer support page announced all sportsbook markets were suspended due to unspecified technical issues.

US customers saw “upcoming MLB, NHL and NBA markets” return about 2.5 hours later, but there were still other markets down. Canada‘s operations were still affected, too.

FanDuel confirmed the issue was over with all markets restored to the US and Canada around 6:30 pm.

Parent company Flutter may discuss the impact of the outage if significant enough during its next earnings call on Aug. 13. The outage occurred on a busy Saturday during the slower second quarter with UEFA European Championship matches and golf’s US Open running during the time FanDuel was down.

DC Lottery leader heads to CT

Frank Suarez, the executive director of the DC Office of Lottery & Gaming, is stepping down from his role effective July 31, Alex Korma of the Washington City Paper reported on Twitter.

He is not leaving gaming, though. Suarez is going to Connecticut, where he will serve as the CEO of the Connecticut Lottery Corporation.

Suarez routinely had to answer to the DC Council for poor results from GambetDC, which was eventually shut down in April. Intralot, the DC Lottery’s main supplier, subcontracted FanDuel to run the lottery’s sportsbook.

The resignation comes a day after the current DC sports betting model took a big hit. An amendment to strip sports betting changes from the DC budget failed Wednesday, meaning the District is a step closer to seven District-wide mobile betting licenses.

Corvex sells MGM shares

MGM Resorts investor Corvex sold 139,300 shares at an average of $40.44 each and now owns 5.86 million shares.

Corvex owned about 3% of MGM when the BetMGM partner announced Keith Meister would take a new board seat in 2019. The stake now accounts for 1.8% of MGM.

Elsewhere, BetMGM landed at No. 16 in the “large category” of the Fortune and Great Place To Work “2024 Fortune Best Workplaces in Metro New York.”

The vast majority of workers surveyed at BetMGM, 92%, called the company a great place to work. That is 35 percentage points higher than the average US company.

Optimove releases Euro sports betting report

Optimove delivered insights into European bettors with survey results released Thursday before the UEFA Championships started.

Notable data points from the survey of 417 European soccer bettors:

Photo by Shutterstock/fizkes