Kambi signed one of its most important sports betting customers to a multiyear contract extension.
The initial partnership between sports betting platform provider and Rush Street Interactive was announced just days after the Supreme Court ended PASPA in May 2018. Along with the BetRivers brand in 15 US states and Ontario, the RushBet brand is also live in Latin America including Colombia, Mexico and Peru.
The deal keeps Kambi exposed to the growing US sports betting market. Outside of BetRivers, the only national brand the supplier is partnered with is Bally Bet, which has moved slower than Kambi initially hoped.
DraftKings and Penn Entertainment opted to acquire their own sports betting technology than continue the recurring expense of third-party tech.
Kambi brings ‘bread and butter’
Rush Street Interactive CEO Richard Schwartz recently praised Kambi for the flexibility and customization of its platform.
“The only thing we haven’t brought in-house is sportsbook platform, which we integrate through Kambi for many years,” Schwartz said on the company’s second quarter earnings call. “As I’ve shared previously, it’s probably been a while, our philosophy on that relationship is that we like to sort of get the bread and butter from Kambi, but we have a development team internally that adds our own flavor, our own twists, our own innovations on top of the sportsbook.
“So we get the benefit, I think, of a core, fundamentally strong core technology, and we differentiate by building our own features on top of it, which are things like the squares have worked and the player props things we did last year that really worked well as well, we have some new ones under development.”
Prop Central, one of those Rush Street twists, led to a 70% jump in MLB player prop bets through June 30. There was also a nearly 50% increase in unique bettors placing those prop bets.
More sports betting brands leave US
Two more international sports betting companies with small US operations are calling it quits.
Betsson‘s Betsafe brand in Colorado and BlueBet‘s ClutchBet brand will both shut down by the end of September. ClutchBet was live in three states and previously scrapped plans to launch in Indiana.
BlueBet, which is pulling out after a merger to better focus on Australia, summed up the issue for smaller sportsbooks in its release to shareholders:
“… the industry dynamics in the US B2C market are such that scale players are currently dominant with smaller operators unable to achieve the necessary unit economics – driving a recent wave of consolidation and exits, which is likely to continue into FY25.”
Betr’s new sports betting tech live
Betr soft-launched its updated sportsbook in Ohio and Virginia on Thursday, which goes beyond the original microbetting-only sportsbook with more traditional products including same game parlays.
Indiana and Maryland will get the updated sportsbook in the “coming months.” The new platform is built from the Chameleon platform acquired from FansUnite in May 2023.
Betr also announced a peer-to-peer “Group Mode” for its fantasy sports platform, Betr Picks. The mode allows its daily fantasy games to be played against each other instead of the house, allowing the product to expand into new states without potentially running afoul of regulators.
Florida and Massachusetts are already live with another eight states coming for a total of 33 states and Washington DC.
Ohio launches college athlete campaign
Ohio for Responsible Gambling launched “More Than A Bet,” a campaign to fight against the harassment of college athletes.
ORG is a partnership between the state’s two gaming regulators, the Ohio Casino Control Commission and the Ohio Lottery Commission, as well as the Ohio Department of Mental Health and Addiction Services.
““These young athletes are more than a bet,” said Tom Stickrath, Chairman of the Ohio Casino Control Commission. “The mental toll of online harassment is unacceptable. By learning about the issue and supporting student-athletes, we can change the narrative.”
