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How to play Booming Bananas
GeoComply processed 99.8 million geolocation checks during Week 1 of the NFL season, reflecting a dramatic surge in sports betting activity. New player registrations also spiked, with sign-ups jumping over 310% to hit 135,700.
The numbers underscore the NFL’s massive pull with sports bettors, but Week 1 also offered a clear snapshot of how football betting economics are evolving, according to Legal Sports Report (LSR).
GeoComply, a Vancouver-based anti-fraud and geolocation technology company, provides compliance services to sportsbook clients worldwide.
What is Booming Bananas?
The four analysts arrive at much the same broad conclusion, albeit by different routes.
For Birkin, the share-price decline has gone well beyond the deterioration in earnings expectations. Fantini sees the industry’s great growth phase as largely behind it. Beynon’s focus is on what the market can see today: earnings and cash flow, rather than promises of future sportsbook growth. And for Robinson, the weakness is no longer simply a matter of valuation. It is increasingly showing up in the fundamentals themselves.
Nobody is predicting the end of gambling. The market is still growing. Good operators are still making money. New products are emerging.
About Booming Bananas
It’s widely believed that all-or-nothing exchanges are carving out significant niches in states, such as California and Texas, where sports betting is prohibited, but there’s also emerging consensus that the prediction market threat to sportsbooks is easing.
A major advantage for traditional sportsbook operators is their ability to aggressively fund customer acquisition and retention bonuses. As EKG points out, prediction markets have “less ability to be generous with bonuses” because users trade against one another rather than against the house.
That creates a stark contrast during peak football season when traditional sportsbooks spend heavily on promotions. Offers ranging from $350 to $365 from major operators make the $25 to $50 promotional matches typically seen on prediction markets appear modest by comparison.
