What separates extraordinary betting professionals from the average punter? In our exclusive webinar, we gained unprecedented access to the strategic thinking of Tom Dry, one of the world's elite tennis bettors.
January 1, 2025, marked a watershed moment for Brazil’s betting industry. After years of operating in a grey market dominated by offshore operators and loosely regulated local outfits, the country now has a clear regulatory framework which has a zero-tolerance approach to unlicensed betting. Far from a routine policy update, Brazil is poised to become one of the largest regulated betting economies, with revenues forecast to reach $6.3 billion by 2038.
Kalshi's groundbreaking regulatory approval has positioned it as the first legal event contract exchange in the U.S., allowing nationwide betting while bypassing state restrictions. With backing from Charles Schwab and Susquehanna, it's poised to reshape the wagering landscape across elections, sports, and beyond.
Over the 12 months to 31 December 2024, the Waterhouse VC Fund delivered a gross return of 28%, reaffirming the strength of our multi-strategy approach. As our portfolio companies succeed and our investor base expands, the volume and quality of opportunities continue to rise. With stronger deal flow and deeper industry insights, we are increasingly the partner of choice for founders in the wagering sector.
Nigel Eccles has long been at the forefront of innovation in the wagering sector. His betting journey began in 2000 and exchanges would be the early focus of his career. After a period away from the industry, Eccles would setup FanDuel in 2009, revolutionising fantasy sports before its $4.2B acquisition by Flutter. Eccles stepped away from FanDuel in 2017 to return to early-stage startups, and has since co-founded five businesses. Today, he is driving the convergence of wagering and crypto through ventures like BetDEX and BetHog.
The U.S. market is maturing and the availability of legal online sports betting is increasing state-by-state. It will be some time before we see the level of consolidation of mature betting markets like the U.K. and Australia. We envision a U.S. online betting market with a handful of firms earning the lion’s share of revenues and profits, and are confident that Flutter will be one of the handful.
Budgets for flagship video games regularly exceed US$100m and this need for scale is a big advantage for the incumbent game publishers. The best content is rewarded with longer game play, which leads to more in-game spending over time. Even with gaming itself getting more of the consumer’s time, the market share of the top titles continues to grow.
The US is a massive growth opportunity for Playtech and they have US experience having been active in the US prior to the bans on online gambling there in 2006. Land-based casinos, state-sponsored lotteries and media companies are among the companies looking to ride the recent online betting boom as gambling is legalised across the country.
