Betr Monitors Prediction Market Scene, But Will Focus On Picks, Arcade App

As the middle school dance that is the American gambling landscape churns toward curfew, Betr remains over against the wall with most of the sportsbooks/daily fantasy sites. They gaze across the balloon-littered basketball court at the prediction markets. Jake Paul is spiking the punch.

The rest watch FanDuel out there, hand-in-hand with CME Group, dancing their first dance and dreaming about big things, when sportsbooks and prediction markets conquer the world. Together. There’s Underdog and Crypto.com, steadies for a bit now, seemingly not caring that a judge might storm the DJ stand and stop the music.

Everyone’s heard the rumor that DraftKings was going to bring Railbird. But they just stare awkwardly through the darkness as that Sabrina Carpenter song begins.

Betr is not yet ready to dance either, Joey Levy, the CEO of the sportsbook/DFS/social casino site told InGame. But the leadership of the company co-founded by him and Paul in 2022 is ruminating, he said.

“We’re incredibly ambitious and we want to accomplish more,” Levy said. “Prediction markets may, could, definitely be a part of that. We’re evaluating our options, but also just remaining very focused on our existing products and some of the other products that we’ve committed to launching.”

Betr now, Betr in the future

In recent months, Betr’s new moves have included a peer-to-peer pivot in both Betr Picks and casino-style skill-based games, namely Arcade. With more offerings coming, Levy projects the vibe of a company busy doing other things, currently.

“We’re the only major DFS-plus operator — with the exception of FanDuel, who recently entered the space to have skill games, and FanDuel has their product available in a separate app called FanDuel Face-Off — with everything in the same app, with the same wallet,” Levy said. “So we think [Betr is] just a far more seamless cross-sell experience.

“We’re about to launch a couple of additional products that will also be unique to amongst the DFS-plus competitive set that I think will further contribute to product differentiation and customer retention and player value, and most importantly, just give our players just a lot more ways to entertain themselves and play than our DFS-plus competitive set. Yeah, we’re obviously looking at prediction markets. We’re just exploring that opportunity. I think everybody in the industry really has to take a look at that and see how they’re going to approach that category.”

“We’re obviously looking at prediction markets. We’re just exploring that opportunity. I think everybody in the industry really has to take a look at that and see how they’re going to approach that category.”

Patience allows Kalshi to figure out legality

The attention generated and alliances formed recently in the prediction market sector could also ultimately evaporate if Kalshi’s run of legal successes end. Or if a fully outfitted Commodities Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) has a philosophical shift — or actually establishes a philosophy — on whether sports event contracts on these platforms constitute, as states attorneys general in Maryland, Nevada, and New Jersey argue, unregulated sports betting.

Levy believes “there’s never been a more exciting time to be in this industry,” but the diversity of the Betr portfolio allows for patience and observation. This includes the timing of pushing the company’s sportsbook footprint beyond just Ohio — co-founder Paul’s home state — and Virginia. Eventually, Levy said, “I don’t think we’re going to be satisfied with what we have today.”

“It’s candidly not a top focus of ours right now, just given everything we have going on with Fantasy Pick’em and Arcade and a couple of the other products that we plan on launching here,” Levy said of sportsbook expansion. “We are looking at ways to expand our geographic reach of our core sportsbook platform that we have invested into developing.

“I think there’s a lot of content in a sportsbook that isn’t currently available in Fantasy Pick’em, so I do think it’s worth considering how to expand that product offering, especially given we’ve already made all the requisite investments in that product and technology.”

Betr’s last sportsbook launch was Sept. 6, 2023 in Virginia. Betr Sportsbook shut down its Massachusetts operation on Feb. 21, 2024.