Underdog Fantasy Fined, Exits New York, For Now
The New York State Gaming Commission (NYSGC) has announced sanctions against Underdog, which it says has been operating unlawfully.
Underdog Fantasy has been offering interactive fantasy sports contests in New York since Dec. 22, 2022, on a temporary fantasy license held by Synkt, now owned by Underdog. The NYSGC on March 14 found Underdog never had a temporary license in the state and it therefore could not offer “certain types” of contests, writes iGB.
The commission fined Underdog $17.5 million. The number is “based on the amount of revenue Underdog’s popular games generated in New York,” per an Underdog email. Underdog stopped offering games in New York March 14.
In a settlement, the NYSGC wrote that Underdog “asserts that it [had] operated in New York since December 22, 2022 under a good-faith belief that it had the ability to do so lawfully.” Underdog, according to the settlement, does not “accept or admit” any wrongdoing.
The company will make 12 payments beginning April 1 through Jan. 1, 2028, to pay off the debt. In the settlement, the NYSGC wrote that it believed Underdog operated in good faith. The company is still eligible to apply for a permanent fantasy or other gambling license. Synkt must now file tax forms with the NYSGC and pay taxes. A failure to do so would be among what is considered if either company applies for a permanent license.
theScoreBet Founder Piles on as Penn Struggles
Ever since Penn Entertainment CEO Jay Snowden addressed the idea that his company or ESPN could exit their 10-year deal for ESPN Bet in 2026, the wagering world has been raining negatives about the partnership. Some analysts have downgraded Penn stock, and recently the founder of theScore and theScoreBet had his say.
John Levy, founder of what Snowden called a “very good story for us in Canada” on the digital betting side of the house, shared at a conference this month his not-so-warm-and-fuzzy thoughts about the transition after his company was acquired by Penn in 2021, according to a report from Awful Announcing.
“I just think you had to give more trust to the people who brought you to the party, which was us,” Levy said. “There was a bit of—we bought it and we’ll take it from here, thank you very much. When you’re as involved in the business as we always were and you can see where it was going, and when things you might have been doing were happening differently—it was very hard, very frustrating.”
Penn’s $2 billion acquisition included theScoreBet’s tech stack. That means Penn has its technology in-house, a key goal for many online gaming companies, as they can correct problems or make alterations more seamlessly and quickly.
Levy was still working with Penn and theScoreBet during Penn’s first foray into a digital betting platform in the U.S. That was the ill-fated partnership with Barstool Sports, which married a cutting edge, but somewhat raunchy brand, with a far more staid and conservative land-based casino company.
The partnership lasted just over three years. In February 2020, Penn bought a 36 percent stake in Barstool, and it completed the $551 million acquisition in February 2023. Penn sold Barstool Sports back to founder Dave Portnoy for $1 in August 2023. That was the same month Penn announced a $2 billion deal with ESPN to create ESPN Bet as its new sportsbook.
The Penn-Barstool relationship was fraught from the beginning, at least from a regulatory perspective. In particular, Penn struggled to sell the partnership to the Massachusetts Gaming Commission. Commissioners questioned how much control Penn would have over advertising and marketing. The commission had serious enough concerns about the Barstool Sports persona and how that fit with responsible gambling and consumer protections that it delayed issuing a wagering license.
All the while, Levy’s theScoreBet continued thriving under Penn’s ownership in Ontario, where digital betting went live in April 2022.
“Ontario is our number one market in North America in terms of revenues, gross profit and contribution margin today and we delivered another strong year of performance in 2024,” Snowden said during a recent earnings call. “We believe the strength in Canada will only grow once we launch in Alberta, pending all requisite approvals, given the affinity for and loyalty to theScore brand across the country.”
But Penn has struggled first with the Barstool Sports partnership and now with ESPN Bet to replicate that success.
Will Nebraksa be First in ‘25 to Add Digital Betting?
Ahead of the 2025 legislative season across the nation, there was much hope that some states would add online casino gaming and others would add digital sports betting. But within weeks, the legislatures in Virginia and Wyoming killed iGaming bills. The Minnesota lawmakers tabled a digital betting bill. And on March 6, crossover day came and went in Georgia with no movement on online wagering.
Enter Nebraska. Voters there had previously legalized in-person betting and casinos in November 2020. In June 2023, the first bets were taken at WarHorse Casino Lincoln, owned by the Winnebago Tribe. Now stakeholders want an expansion that would allow for six digital platforms tethered to land-based gaming facilities.
On March 17, the Senate General Affairs sent a digital wagering constitutional amendment to the floor. Nebraska has a unicameral – or single-chamber – legislature. Should the Senate pass LR 20CA, a referendum would go on the November 2026 ballot. The bill was “placed on general file” March 19, which means it could get its first debate and vote in the full Senate. The proposal must pass through three Senate votes to pass.
Digital betting bills are also moving in Hawaii and Mississippi. In Hawaii, a bill that would allow for four online platforms has been advancing despite heavy opposition from multiple government agencies and native Hawaiian groups. In Mississippi, House lawmakers inserted legal digital betting language into a Senate tidal plains bill.
The fate of all the bills is unclear. Nebraska lawmakers heard lots of opposition to their constitutional amendment and its enabling legislation, LB 421. The framework bill has not moved out of committee. But the legislature could pass the constitutional amendment this session and the enabling legislation in 2026 — or after the constitutional amendment passes, if it does.
Should the constitutional amendment pass out of the Senate, voters would select “for” or “against” the following:
A constitutional amendment to permit an authorised gaming operator conducting sports wagering within a licensed racetrack enclosure to allow a sports wager to be placed by an individual located within the State of Nebraska at the time the individual places the sports wager by means of a mobile or electronic platform.
How LR 20CA will fare on the Senate floor isn’t clear. According to the Kearney Hub, lawmakers advanced the measure as a defensive move. Some said they believe the industry would begin gathering signatures for its own ballot initiative if this one does not move.
“I’ve got a lot of heartburn about mobile sports betting,” Senator John Cavanaugh said. “But if we don’t do this, they will put it on the ballot. And it will be more expansive than this.”
University of Missouri Considers Betting Ban
As Missouri regulators work on crafting rules to launch legal digital sports betting in the fall, administrators at the University of Missouri are discussing the possibility of banning students, staff and faculty from placing bets on university teams, reported KOMU 8 March 13.
The idea isn’t new. In 2019, Saint Joseph’s University and Villanova, both in Pennsylvania, and Purdue instituted similar prohibitions. In all cases, those banned cannot bet on the school’s team, whether they are playing at home or away.
“It’s consistent with some policies put in place by other universities,” Missouri faculty council chair Tom Warhover told the TV station. “It’s been a point of discussion in NCAA meetings, in the faculty athletics representatives meetings.”
Missouri voters legalized retail and digital sports betting on the November 2024 ballot. The Missouri Gaming Commission says it will launch wagering by the mandated Dec. 1 deadline.
College Prop-Bet Ban Proposed in Congress
A third federal sports betting proposal was filed Feb. 25. This one is narrower than either the SAFE Bet Act or the GRIT Act. HR 1552, known as the PROTECT Act, would impose a federal ban on prop bets on college athletes.
Rep. Michael Baumgartner announced his bill via social media in a series of posts that detail that student-athletes suffer from harassment. He says sportsbooks should stop earning profits “off the backs” of student-athletes. In one of the posts, Baumgartner wrote:
“The rise of player prop bets and match fixing.
> Threatens game integrity and student-athlete experience.
> Blurs the lines between amateur and professional sports”
Sports betting became a states’ rights issue in 2018, when the Supreme Court overturned the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act. Since then, 39 U.S. states have legalized sports betting, and it is live in 38 states. Baumgartner is a congressman from Washington state, where in-person sports betting at tribal sportsbooks is legal.
OTB Owner Fights for Her Business
Alyse Cohen has been around OTBs her whole life. Now she’s fighting for a gambling expansion to save hers.
Growing up on a horse farm in rural Maryland meant riding to a hang-out spot was more than just hopping on your bike or in someone’s car to go have fun. You could saddle up and head down to the Wilcom’s Inn, a historic roadhouse at the end of a drag strip near Frederick, Maryland and hitch your horse up right outside.
Alyse Cohen’s memories of that sort of place, where everyone wanted to be on Friday and Saturday nights, started her on her current path. Her father Randy used to take her to another Frederick staple called the Cracked Claw, a seafood restaurant turned off-track betting parlor that was legendary in the area.
When the family that owned the Cracked Claw closed the business in 2011, the OTB license for Frederick County was available. Cohen, 36, who along with her family had a hotel and conference center in Frederick, felt an opportunity to come full circle with her childhood and decided to acquire the vacant OTB license. In July 2019, Long Shot’s, Cohen’s restaurant and OTB, opened.
Since then, reports iGB, Cohen added a retail sportsbook to her OTB and business took off. But then Maryland regulators launched digital betting and traffic at brick-and-mortar locations dropped. Now, Cohen is lobbying and testifying before the state legislature in favor of bills that would allow her to partner with a digital operator for online casino, and another that would allow her to bring historical horse racing machines into her sportsbook. Either, she said, could save her business.
Lines on NWSL Now Available
Sportsbooks like BetMGM and FanDuel will now be able to offer betting markets for the National Women’s Soccer League. Abelson Sports is now providing odds on the league, Complete iGaming reported March 19.
The NWSL is the highest-level professional women’s soccer league in the U.S. and has teams in 14 cities. Abelson already provides markets on other women’s soccer events, including English Women’s Soccer League and UEFA Women’s Champions League.
