The partnership will see WTA highlights broadcast on FanDuel’s platform, marking the first time video highlights of a women’s sport will feature on FanDuel’s platforms and sportsbooks.
FanDuel and WTA will also collaborate on several responsible gaming measures.
Financial terms of the teal were not disclosed, but Genius said the combination of its official sports data, network and operational scale with Spirable’s video platform will offer deeper engagement, higher performance and lower cost of acquisition for partners.
Spirable works with brands, agencies and rights holders to create, automate and optimise personalised content, using live and contextual data and AI to distribute content across digital channels including Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Snapchat.
The platform already counts the likes of Spotify, Coca-Cola, P&G, Domino’s, Diageo and Heineken among its clients, with Genius set to gain access to these brands through the acquisition.
In addition, Spirable has partnerships in place with operators such as DraftKings, Flutter, WynnBET, Betway, 888 Holdings and Entain in the gambling and betting sector.
“With the increasing convergence of sports, betting and media, personalised video advertising has become an essential requirement to attract, engage and acquire customers,” Genius Sports chief executive Mark Locke said.
“We are delighted to add Spirable’s specialist capabilities to our rapidly expanding suite of fan engagement tools, combining official data feeds across hundreds of competitions with fully immersive video content.”
Spirable chief executive Ger O’Meara added: “The sports sector has always been at the pinnacle of advertising and marketing, and more than ever brands are looking to maximise their engagement with fans before, during and after events.
“Over the past six years, our talented team has helped change the way brands create, scale and optimise creative to reach their customers. Together with Genius Sports, we will work to offer more valuable real-time content that will increase fan interaction and retention.”
Genius expects to complete the acquisition during the second half of the year.
The “Have a Game Plan” campaign campaign was first launched in 2019 and designed to educate sports fans on responsible gambling principles. It has fostered partnerships with the likes of DraftKings, FanDuel, Nascar, UFC and the PGA Tour.
The Washington Football Team will display the campaign slogan in-stadium, post sponsored content on the team’s website, and allow for campaign promotion on pre season radio and television broadcasts.
Washington’s chief partnership officer Scott Shepherd said: “With legal sports betting now permitted across our region, we are ensuring responsible gaming serves as a foundation for how we engage in this exciting commercial market.
$51.1m of the revenue total was derived from gaming – a 38.1% increase from 2020 – while $7.3m came from other sources.
However, GNOG’s expenses also increased significantly from 2020, rising 156.1% to $71.2m. Revenue costs were $26.9m, advertising and promotion amounted to $30.9m, and administrative costs totaled $13.4m.
As a result, GNOG recorded an operating loss of $12.8m for the first half of the year. However, a $90.0m gain on the change of values of warrants related to GNOG’s SPAC merger helped to make up for this.
Because of this, half-year net income came to $68.1m – up 1483.7% from 2020.
Adjusted earnings before interest, taxation, depreciation and amortization were down from $14.4m in 2020 to a $7.4m loss, which the operator attributed to growth investments in new markets such as Michigan.
The increase came after the Q2 2020 period was affected by the novel coronavirus (Covid-19) pandemic.
Most of this revenue – $14.1m – was generated in Europe, a rise of $12.9m compared to Q2 2020. A total of $10.2m came from Latin America operations, which did not have comparative figures available for Q2 2020. The United States accumulated $8.6m, up 22.2%. The rest of the world made up $1.5m.
Revenue in the six months to 30 June was up from €13.6m in the same period last year, with commissions revenue rising 20.2% to €14.2m and revenue from flat fees up 63.5% to $2.9m.
Raketech said that this growth was primarily driven by a rise in network sales, as well as “continued strong growth” in Japan and additional revenue through the recently acquired AmericanGambler US-facing affiliate site in November last year.
However, Raketech noted that this additional revenue from AmericanGambler was partly offset by a reduction in revenue following the disposal of its consumer finance assets late last year.
Shortly after the end of the first half, Raketech also completed the acquisitions of QM Media AB’s assets and Spain-based organic casino affiliation marketing company Infinileads, with key assets Slotjava.es and Slotjava.it.
Looking at costs for the period and total operating expenses were 29.9% higher at €13.9m, driven by an increase in costs related to fixed fees and commissions revenue, with this up 71.4% to €6.0m.
However, such was the impact of the revenue increase that operating profit climbed 10.3% to €3.2m, while earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) was 20.0% higher at €6.6m.
After including $602,000 in finance costs, pre-tax profit stood at €2.5m, up 4.2% year-on-year, while after paying €127,000 in tax, comprehensive profit for the period amounted to €2.4m, an increase of 4.4% on last year.
Turning attention to the second quarter and revenue was 25.7% higher at €8.8m, with commission revenue rising 17.3% to €7.3m and flat fees revenue up 83.9% to €1.5m.
Operating expenses in the three months to 30 June were 30.9% up at €7.2m, but operating profit was 6.7% higher at €1.6m and EBITDA increased 20.1% year-on-year to €3.4m.
Finance costs amounted to €295,000, which left a pre-tax profit of €1.3m, level with last year. Raketech paid €66,000 in tax and, as such, ended the quarter in line with Q2 of 2020 on €1.2m.
“The second quarter of 2021 was a record quarter for Raketech with general solid performance across most assets and regions, in particular from our Network sales and from our efforts in Japan,” Raketech group chief executive Oskar Mühlbach said.
“Besides being happy with our operational performance I am also content with the fact that we continue to deliver on our strategic and operational goals. We have also made important and strategic acquisitions whereby we increase our footprint on important growth markets such as the US.
“With this and the fact that we are delivering more now than ever before, I am looking forward to seeing the results from onboarding our recently acquired talents, markets, and assets to the Raketech family.”
Under New York’s mobile betting rules, the state must select two platform providers, which together must offer at least four skins. Players, however, may only have one account per platform provider.
Last week, the state published the applicants involved in the six bids that had been accepted.
One of the bids is led by FanDuel – which will also see Bally’s, BetMGM and DraftKings enter the market. While FanDuel had been listed as the platform provider and the other parties as operators, the bid documents clarified that all four would use their own platform.
GambleAware will help fund the project through an eight-month grant award process, saying the new hub will support its aim of creating a society safe from gambling harms and help deliver its strategic objective to actively build academic research capacity.
The charity added that it is expected the research facility will secure alternative funding to support its continued growth and development beyond the initial grant award.
“This is a fantastic opportunity for a British university to develop and innovate in a relatively under-researched field, bringing to bear a much wider range of academic disciplines than are currently engaged in gambling harms research,” GambleAware interim research director Alison Clare said.
“With this significant investment, a British university and its partners will have the chance to create a step change in building knowledge in an area which links and overlaps with many other subjects and fields.
The new hub will seek to broaden the range of academic disciplines engaged with gambling harms research in Great Britain, with the aim of supporting and informing the wider system of treatment providers, organisations and agencies working to prevent and reduce gambling harm.
While the hub will be based at one university, with a number of establishments having put forward applications to host the facility, the hub will work both within its own institution and externally with other academics and partners to support research.
GambleAware is encouraging applications from those with a strong academic track record in adjacent disciplines such as public health, mental health, health inequalities, health economics, epidemiology, clinical health and psychology.
“It’s a different type of grant award to the smaller projects and programmes in our current research portfolio, with GambleAware taking a much more arm’s length approach in guiding the area of research focus,” Clare said.
“Our main criteria is that universities apply a multi-disciplinary, public health lens in setting out the rationale for their chosen research area. From our early discussions with selected universities, we’re expecting some very creative and innovative proposals at the initial Expression of Interest stage.”
The launch of the new project comes after GambleAware announced the return of its Bet Regret safer gambling campaign to align with the start of the 2020-21 English Premier League football season.
In his new role, Meltzer will oversee Strive Gaming’s expansion efforts across North America as it seeks to grow its presence and business in the market.
Meltzer joins Strive Gaming after five years as chief commercial officer at Kambi, a role in which he helped the sports betting technology provider launch in the US following the repeal of the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act of 1992.
Prior to this, he spent two years as head of sales for the Press Association and was also a co-founder and director of sports management agency Simply Sport Management.
“As CEO of Strive Gaming I want to give back to an industry that has given me so much – this includes creating a company and a work culture that supports diversity, health and people’s personal responsibilities,” Meltzer said.
Total revenue for the state’s gambling market amounted to $450.6m in July, up 70.4% from $264.5m in the same month last year and also 14.7% higher than $392.8m in June this year.
New Jersey continued to feel the effect of reduced novel coronavirus (Covid-19) measures, with the relaxation of rules meaning casinos and retail sportsbooks are open, albeit with some restrictions still in place.
Casinos closed in mid-March last year and did not reopen until the start of July 2020, but the venues faced significantly more restrictions when compared to the same month this year.
Covid-19 also impacted sports betting in July 2020, with some major events having delayed or cancelled due to the pandemic. However, this year saw an almost normal calendar that included the first week of the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games.
