Welcome to the Weekend Report, where iGB updates you with the stories you may have missed over the last few days.
New Labour government brings gambling uncertainty
Thursday’s (4 July) UK general election brought with it a significant shift in power as Labour claimed a huge majority. This ended a 14-year reign by the Conservatives and led to a major overhaul of key parliamentary personnel.
Lisa Nandy MP, who has taken over as the new secretary of state for culture, media and sport, will be charged with overseeing Britain’s gambling industry. On the World Series of Politics podcast prior to the election this week, Regulus Partners’ Dan Waugh outlined how a Labour government could impact the gambling industry.
“In terms of whether it has a major bearing on the gambling market, it’s unclear,” Waugh said. “From an industry perspective, it looks reasonably comforting. Labour is making some fairly positive noises about this.
“I’m not sure it’s that straightforward and the reason I say that is that while I don’t think Labour have at the moment a particularly negative agenda towards the gambling industry, a lot of the work of government is not carried out by politicians, it’s carried out by civil servants.
“And there’s fairly strong evidence to suggest the major organs of state have been captured, at least to the extent they touch on gambling, on a very strong public health movement which really sees gambling as the new tobacco.”
Bosnian tennis player banned for match-fixing
Former Bosnia and Herzegovina tennis player Jasmina Tinjić has been banned from the sport for six years. This follows her admission of match-fixing offences.
The International Tennis Integrity Agency (ITIA) has banned Tinjić for 23 breaches of the Tennis Anti-Corruption Programme (TACP). These included “contriving the outcome of matches, facilitating wagering, receiving money in return for not giving best efforts in matches and failure to report corrupt approaches.”
Tinjić was previously banned in 2022 in her residential home nation of Sweden for match-fixing offences under criminal law. Therefore, Tinjić’s ban from the ITIA has been backdated and will come to a conclusion in May 2028.
FanDuel and New York flourish in Q2
New data from Jefferies has revealed New York saw a 33% year-on-year statewide increase in online sportsbook handle and a 32% rise in gross gaming revenue (GGR). The rise in handle was the highest ever recorded in New York. It was also a significant increase on the 11% rise seen the previous quarter.
In terms of operators, FanDuel still led the way with 47% of the state’s GGR share. DraftKings was second with 36%, while Caesars and BetMGM had 6% and 5% respectively.
FanDuel rebounded after a poor May which saw its GGR share fall to 43% and rival DraftKings’ rise to 41%. In June, FanDuel’s share went up by seven points to 50% as DraftKings failed to follow up its May success, seeing its GGR share drop to 31%.
