Tech & innovation – FairOdds Network

March 18, 2025

Kalshi, Robinhood partner for March Madness following cease-and-desist extension

Kalshi and Robinhood have partnered again to offer sports contracts, this time ahead of the NCAA men's and women's basketball tournaments.

The renewed partnership was announced by both sides on Monday (17 March). Robinhood will launch a standalone prediction market hub in its app, made possible through Kalshi. According to Front Office Sports, Robinhood had just under 25 million users as of last November.

The first markets will be on the NCAA men’s and women’s basketball tournaments, which begin on Tuesday (18 March) and Wednesday (19 March), respectively. There will also be contracts listed for whether the Federal Reserve will change the federal funds rate at its May meeting.

Last month, the exchanges partnered to offer Super Bowl contracts, but Robinhood quickly backed out following pushback from the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC). Kalshi and Crypto.com, another entrant into the prediction space, kept their Super Bowl contracts active before and during the..

March 3, 2025

Panda Interactive files additional complaints against Sportradar and Genius Sports

Sports betting and streaming operator Panda Interactive has filed complaints in its legal cases against Sportradar and Genius Sports alleging they are engaged in anti-competitive practices.

In October 2023, Panda Interactive filed two lawsuits in the Texas Eastern District Court accusing Sportradar and Genius Sports of patent infringement. It initially claimed the two companies had “wilfully” infringed Panda’s low latency, interactive sports streaming and betting technology patents.

The operator said it had developed a number of patents within the streaming and live sports data verticals, including technology that allows players to view live odds and place bets while watching sports.

Panda’s previous filings also alleged that large swaths of the sports technology suppliers’ businesses were using Panda’s patents. These include Genius’ LiveData, LiveTrading, Genius Trading, BetVision and in-Play Multibet products.

Sportradar had also been accused of infringing Panda Interactive pate..

January 13, 2025

After election boom, Kalshi gets creative in new markets, including sports

Over the fall, Kalshi successfully overcame legal challenges from the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) and became the first legal, regulated prediction market. The US presidential election was a gold mine for it and others – but now, the market is a hodgepodge of contracts for politics, finance and… sports?

Through the 5 November elections, the New York-based Kalshi was estimated to have taken in more than $700 million (£542.5 million/€651.5 million) in contracts, with some $430 million staked on the presidential race alone.

Kalshi prevailed in federal court against the CFTC last year by arguing that offering the contracts did not equate to gaming. The exchange lists the yes-no contracts with percentage odds and matches opposite contracts to each other. It then makes money on trading commissions. After Kalshi’s victory, multiple other well-known exchanges rolled out prediction markets, including Robinhood and Crypto.com.

The CFTC argued it was not equipped to be Ameri..

November 4, 2024

Rush to the polls, bet from anywhere: Prediction markets abound ahead of US elections

On 5 November, US voters will elect a new president and decide a litany of other political issues. What makes this election different from past ones is that investors – and bettors – have pounced on the rise of political prediction markets such as Kalshi.

Prediction markets, or derivatives exchanges that offer “yes/no” event futures contracts on current events like politics and pop culture, have been around for several years in relative grey-area obscurity. But a recent US federal court ruling appears to have opened the floodgates, at least for now.

On 2 October, the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia ruled in favour of Kalshi, a New York-based exchange whose senate- and house-related contracts had been delisted by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) in June 2023. The CFTC argued unsuccessfully that the contracts involved gaming due to their speculative nature.

Kalshi, meanwhile, leaned into arguments that have similarities to those used for legalised sp..

October 22, 2024

How are personalisation and technology driving NBA in-play betting?

The NBA regular season tips off on Tuesday (22 October) with the reigning champion Boston Celtics hosting the New York Knicks. There’s sure to be fast-paced excitement on the court and operators will look to tap into that with their in-play offerings, which have surged in popularity of late.

In June the provider Simplebet, which specialises in micromarket pricing, revealed it had enjoyed a third straight NBA season of growth (up 75% year-on-year), with nearly 13 million in-play bets placed during the 2023-24 season.

Around $325m was wagered with operators using Simplebet’s microbetting products, with the company offering 86 unique in-play markets during the NBA post-season.

Following Simplebet’s third season of consecutive growth, DraftKings announced it had reached an agreement to acquire the microbetting specialist.

The landscape of sports betting in the US since the 1992 Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act (PASPA) was repealed in 2018 has been one of constant evolutio..

September 9, 2024

Brazil government preparing heavy crackdown on illegal betting payments

Pay4Fun director Ari Celia tells iGB Brazil's ministry of finance has established a new department to target black market operators. He expects Pix blocking efforts to be successful.
Brazil’s government is implementing hefty measures to prevent illegal operators from processing payments ahead of the legal betting market’s launch on 1 January 2025.

The government’s ministry of finance is setting up a team of eight civil servants who will specifically work on preventing illegal sites from taking and receiving payments, according to Celia.

The team will process complaints from the sector and seek to punish unlicensed payment providers and illegal sites.

Blocking Pix payments will be successful
One measure the government has publicly announced is blocking payments involving illegal operators made via Pix, an instant payment service controlled by the Central Bank of Brazil which the majority of the betting market uses.

Regulators in other markets like Germany and across Europe..

August 20, 2024

Revamped product and customer personalisation key to Evoke growth plans

Evoke plc is banking on automation and AI as it embarks on a “total transformation” of the business, says chief executive Per Widerström following disappointing first half results.
Following a profit warning in July, Evoke reported a 2% decline revenue to £862m last week, with adjusted EBITDA falling 26% year-on-year.

“We understand exactly what went wrong and we have taken corrective actions to address the problems,” Per Widerström says of evoke’s h1 results
Widerström did not shy away from acknowledging the operator’s underperformance on Evoke’s H1 earnings call. “[These] results are disappointing and are not acceptable. We understand exactly what went wrong and we have taken corrective actions to address the problems.”

He outlined a range of product improvements, changes to customer lifecycle management and new ways of communicating the overall value proposition for customers in particular.

Product underpins growth plans for Evoke
The product proposition is enhanced by a revamp..

August 20, 2024

Stake.com continues regulated market push with Peru online gaming launch

Crypto gaming specialist Stake.com is expanding its regulated footprint, securing casino and sportsbook licences to launch in the Peru online gaming market.
The rollout of Stake.pe marks the operator’s second regulated LatAm market, after it acquired Betfair Colombia in November last year. This push is going global, as shown by this month’s acquisition of Idealbet, a licensed Italian operator.

“We are delighted to bring Stake to Peru, a country that has a lot of potential for digital growth, which has been evident in recent years,” said Stake’s general manager for Latin America Diana Otalora. “This shows our ambition to provide world-class entertainment to Peruvian customers and to expand our reach in LatAm.”

Boylesports and Inkabet veteran joins for Peru igaming market push
Jennyfer Escobar joins as country manager to lead Stake’s Peru online gaming push. She joins after a short stint at Boylesports, where she served as growth manager, and also spent over six years at Inkabet, acq..

April 12, 2024

Charting Nigeria’s online gambling growth amid regulatory battles

One of the most exciting emerging global online gambling markets is Nigeria, boasting a youthful population that H2 Gambling Capital forecasts to lead it to gross gaming revenue (GGR) of €675.1m (£576.8m/$717.2m) by 2025. With a legal battle over regulation ongoing, though, how exactly is it achieving its success?

Firstly, it’s imperative to note the demographics of Nigeria, which is the most populous country in Africa with well over 200 million inhabitants. According to a report from The Economist, that population is predicted to grow to 400 million by 2050, surpassing the US as the third most-populous country on the planet.

Looking closer at Nigeria’s data reveals a hugely youthful population, with figures from the World Factbook outlining that approximately 41% of people in the country are aged between 14 and under, with the average age of a person in Nigeria just 19 years old.

Taking those demographics aspects into account it’s clear to see why there is excitement over how Niger..

April 10, 2024

Solving sports betting – the AI way

The advent of AI-assisted products in the sportsbook space appears to offer up the prospect of an epoch-changing leap forward in risk management. But does it mean that margin volatility will become a thing of the past? Not quite yet, suggest the experts. But the product is developing fast.

Buzz phrases don’t get much buzzier than “AI-assisted”. The mere mention of the phrase either prompts excited optimism about a tech-driven future – or a very real fear of the same.

In the betting and gaming space, the use of artificial intelligence may not quite engender the apocalyptic visions of the AI naysayers in the wider world. But it still appears to offer the possibility of very much changed business practices.

the advent of ai could herald huge change for sports betting, writes Scott Longley

Notably, given the central importance of data to any potential machine learning or AI developments, it is the two leading sports data collection entities that are leading the charge.

The pair launc..

March 5, 2024

EGBA lauds EU’s proposed introduction of digital identification

The European Gaming and Betting Association (EGBA) has welcomed the European parliament’s approval of introducing a standardised electronic identification method called a “European Digital Identity” (e-ID).

The EGBA-endorsed move would oblige states in the European Union (EU) to issue an e-ID to citizens. This would allow them to authenticate their identity for online services. These e-IDs will be optional for citizens and businesses.

EGBA labelled the European parliament’s approval on Monday a “significant milestone” in providing a safer and more inclusive online environment for citizens in the EU. There were 335 votes in favour, 190 opposing the new regulations and 31 abstentions.

The proposed e-IDs will mean citizens would no longer have to resort to commercial providers to verify their online identification, something that has caused privacy and security concerns in the past.

The hope is that e-IDs will reduce the risk of fraud and identity theft, enhancing security for the EU’..

February 1, 2024

Endeavor to integrate IMG Arena into Openbet

Endeavor has announced it will integrate its sport betting brand OpenBet with its data business IMG Arena under the OpenBet banner, creating a full sports betting ecosystem for operators.

Global sports and entertainment company Endeavor announced the move on Thursday. Endeavor aims to leverage the expertise of OpenBet’s betting technology with IMG Arena’s data.

IMG Arena will operate under the OpenBet banner, offering its data to operators, media outlets and other rights holders.

Jordan Levin, chief executive of OpenBet, will spearhead the company, reporting to Endeavor president and chief operating officer Mark Shapiro. Freddie Longe, former IMG Arena president, will remain with the business as a strategic advisor during the transition period.

In the announcement, Shapiro stated this move was in the works for a while following Endeavor’s acquisition of OpenBet. The September 2022 deal was worth $800m (£633.4m/€740.3m).

“When we acquired OpenBet in 2022, we envisioned a holistic ..

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Tag: Tech & innovation