With online gambling now legal in 25 states, the 2021 NCAA tournament will be a slam dunk for gaming sites—and the friendly office pool may never rebound.



By Will Yakowicz, Forbes Staff



Bob, a 34-year-old gambler from Illinois who works in logistics, has bet in his office <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/jayginsbach/2021/03/15/countdown-to-2021-ncaa-tournament-no-1-seeds-most-popular-bets-led-by-gonzaga-michigan-and-illinois/?sh=59dc48775038">March Madness</a> pool for the last five years. With about 75 colleagues and a $25 buy-in, the pot will be just under $2,000 for this year’s <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/marcedelman/2021/03/17/will-march-madness-2021-be-shamateurisms-last-dance/?sh=7e1d5009368a">NCAA men’s basketball tournament</a>—but he’s not filling out a bracket. 



For gamblers, the office pool has lost its luster. “It’s boring—I’d rather gamble other ways,” says Bob, who did not want to give his last name. “For Betty Sue, who runs the front desk, does she like the office bracket? Of course, she does; she’s not a gambler.”



March Madness is always&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/willyakowicz/2020/10/30/bettors-have-wagered-more-money-on-trump-vs-biden-than-nevada-collected-during-super-bowl-liv/?sh=75ede2e45ae3">big action</a>&nbsp;for Bob, who says he lays out about 25% of his annual $20,000 bankroll during the three-week long, a single-elimination, seven-round college basketball tournament. This year, he’s placing bets on mobile betting services like DraftKings and Barstool Sports. Bob will also wager with his go-to bookie, a longstanding relationship he has decided to keep despite his access to legal options.&nbsp;



He is not alone. According to a <a href="https://www.americangaming.org/resources/2021-march-madness-wagering-estimates/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">study</a> published by the American Gaming Association this week, the number of Americans—36.7 million—filling out a bracket is down 8% compared to the last NCAA Tournament in 2019. (March Madness was cancelled in 2020 due to the Covid-19 outbreak.) About 31 million Americans are placing more traditional bets on this year’s tournament, up from nearly 18 million in 2019. 



<blockquote class="wp-block-quote is-style-large is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow">“Brackets bring in about $2 million,” says DraftKing’s Johnny Avello. “I can’t tell you what March Madness will bring, but it will be&nbsp;exponentially&nbsp;bigger.”</blockquote>



Bill Miller, the president and CEO of the American Gaming Association says that the number of people betting online this year is up more than 200% from 2019. About 18 million people will bet online while 8 million will bet in-person at a sportsbook. Miller says the dramatic increase in online betting is thanks to the fact that&nbsp;<a href="https://www.americangaming.org/research/state-gaming-map/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">13 new legal sports betting markets</a>&nbsp;have opened up since the 2019 tournament, bringing the total to 25 states (and Washington, D.C. ) that have legalized sports betting, with 21 markets operational. By population, 45% of American adults now live in a state with legalized sports betting.&nbsp;



“We have seen a massive increase in legal sports betting,” says Miller. “States recognized that people have been betting on sports since there’s been sports to bet on.”&nbsp;



“There is a migration from the illegal market to the legal market,” he continues, “and there is excitement and pent up demand for March Madness and the opportunity for people to bet legally and safely has never been better.”



While the number of Americans placing bets this year—47 million—is expected to stay flat from 2019, wagers are expected to break the 2019 record of $8.5 billion. 



At DraftKings, the proliferation of online sports gambling&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/sergeiklebnikov/2021/03/10/soaring-draftkings-stock-makes-ceo-jason-robins-a-billionaire/?sh=22faa08611f9">made company cofounder and CEO Jason Robins a billionaire</a>&nbsp;earlier this year. DraftKings, which was founded in 2012, has been on a tear since the company went&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/kurtbadenhausen/2020/05/18/soaring-draftkings-stock-makes-israeli-entrepreneur-a-billionaire/?sh=2ae4cddb37c9">public through a reverse merger</a>&nbsp;last April—its stock price jumped has 260%. The company recently reported impressive $322 million in revenue, a 146% increase from $131 million in the prior year, and also reported that monthly users have risen by 500,000 to 1.5 million from the previous quarter.&nbsp;



March Madness should only add to that winning streak.



“It will be the biggest ever,” says Johnny Avello, DraftKings’ head of race and sportsbook. “We sorely missed the tournament last year. We saw intense action when we put the lines up on Sunday. But forget the fact that we missed the tournament last year, the growth from 2019 to 2021 in sports betting across the U.S. has increased dramatically. There are more users, more states on board, and more offerings.”



To keep with tradition, DraftKings is offering brackets. About 20,000 people will pay $100 to enter and the winner will get $1 million. DraftKings is also hosting free-to-play survivor pools in all states, including jurisdictions where sports betting is not legal, with a $1 million first prize.&nbsp;



But Avello says these contests are peanuts compared with more traditional betting, player proposition bets, and in-game wagering. “Brackets bring in about $2 million. I can’t tell you what March Madness will bring, but it will be&nbsp;exponentially&nbsp;bigger,” says Avello. “It’s the biggest event of the year, bigger than the Super Bowl.”&nbsp;



John Murray, director of the Westgate sports book in Las Vegas, is equally optimistic. He says all signs point to the fact that sports betting, and March Madness, has roared back to life this year.&nbsp;



“We set a handle record in January and in February—the highest handles we’ve ever had twice just this year,” says Murray. “I see no reason at all that we won’t have a huge March Madness.”



Murray says the spike in business is due to mobile betting. About 80% of the Westgate’s business is from wagers made on a smartphone. “The mobile phone is the answer,” says Murray.&nbsp;



The crowd at the Westgate is not back to pre-pandemic levels, mostly due to Covid-related capacity restrictions, but the sportsbook’s volume has already surpassed 2019. “Handle-wise, we’ve already exceeded pre-pandemic levels,” says Murray. “We’re already there—I’m confident this weekend will be huge.”



Miller of the American Gaming Association also sees the rebound in the number of people betting on sports as a lucky sign. “I think March Madness is an important indicator that the post-pandemic world is coming back to a good place,” he says. “March Madness, the opening of spring training in baseball, Opening Day around the corner, these are indicators that the economy and the American psyche are moving forward. March Madness is a signal that life is returning to normal.”&nbsp;

Three men in a betting shop

March Madness Gamblers Expected To Break $8.5 Billion Record Thanks To Mobile Sports Betting

TOPLINE With most live sports suspended during the coronavirus pandemic, online gamblers have turned to different contests like Russian table tennis and Korean baseball, while also betting on everything from video games and reality television shows to political news and even the weather.



KEY FACTS



<ul class="wp-block-list"><li>“[English] darts and esports have had big increases in betting volumes, along with football [soccer] leagues that have kept playing like the Belarusian Premier League,” says Pascal Lemesre, a spokesman for U.K. betting exchange platform Smarkets. “Horse racing remains our most-traded sport and has made up two-thirds of volume since the lockdown began.”</li></ul>



<ul class="wp-block-list"><li>Many betting companies, like DraftKings, had to really dig and get creative with new offerings during the pandemic, says Johnny Avello, head of sportsbook for DraftKings. “We went out and found whatever we could… we wanted to keep our customers engaged.”</li></ul>



<ul class="wp-block-list"><li>A charity golf match with Tiger Woods, Peyton Manning, Phil Mickleson and Tom Brady, for example, has drawn massive interest and could surpass the betting volumes DraftKings saw in last year’s major golf tournaments.</li></ul>



<ul class="wp-block-list"><li>Betting on esports has also seen a huge uptick and has really “made its mark,” he says: Virtual NASCAR races proved to be immensely popular, along with daily fantasy for video games like League of Legends and Counter-Strike: Global Offensive. </li></ul>



<ul class="wp-block-list"><li>There has also been a lot of interest in betting on politics, including who will win the 2020 U.S. presidential election, who Democratic nominee Joe Biden will choose as his vice president and how long UK prime minister Boris Johnson will stay in office. </li></ul>



<ul class="wp-block-list"><li>According to data from Smarkets, <a rel="noreferrer noopener" href="https://smarkets.com/event/886736/politics/us/us-presidential-election-2020/2020-election-winner" target="_blank">almost $2 million</a> has already been traded on the election, with Donald Trump retaining a 5% lead over Joe Biden; Kamala Harris is frontrunner to be Biden’s VP, <a rel="noreferrer noopener" href="https://smarkets.com/event/2094165/politics/us/us-presidential-election-2020/democrat-nominee-vp?utm_source=cision&amp;utm_medium=email&amp;utm_campaign=politics-prices" target="_blank">slightly ahead</a> of Amy Klobuchar.</li></ul>



<ul class="wp-block-list"><li>Since the Democratic debate between Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders in mid-March, DraftKings has offered free-to-play betting pools around many political events, along with reality television shows like Survivor and Top Chef, and even the weather in certain states.</li></ul>



SURPRISING FACT



Bettors have certainly shown interest in gambling on the outcomes of their favorite TV shows: According to data from BetOnline, there was even a flurry of betting on the final episode of&nbsp;The Last Dance, with odds on things like whether Michael Jordan would cry while being interviewed or how many people would be shown with a cigar in their mouth.



WHAT TO WATCH FOR



Sportsbooks are seeing&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/sergeiklebnikov/2020/05/19/draftkings-shares-skyrocket-thanks-to-bets-on-table-tennis-korean-baseball/#451dc9df78c0">huge pent-up demand</a>&nbsp;as some major sports like NASCAR and German Bundesliga soccer start to resume. Soccer, which normally makes up 45% of the Smarkets’ betting volume, fell to 23%, maintained largely by interest in the Belarusian Premier League and Nicaraguan soccer, both of which continued to play games amid the pandemic. With the German Bundesliga resuming last weekend, betting volumes increased 428% compared to the previous round of fixtures before coronavirus, according to Smarkets.



CRUCIAL QUOTE



“When you don’t have all the normal content, customers will migrate,” Avello says. “That’s the positive that’s going to come out of this—we’re always looking for additional content.”&nbsp;



KEY BACKGROUND



DraftKings reported <a rel="noreferrer noopener" href="https://www.cnbc.com/2020/04/24/draftkings-ceo-jason-robins-says-there-was-record-betting-on-nfl-draft.html" target="_blank">record</a> betting during the NFL Draft last month—13x the volume from last year—and has also seen strong interest in the recent return of Ultimate Fighting Championship events, the company said. “We got good action on the stuff we did, but now that we’re starting to get back to core events, demand should rise even higher,” Avello predicts. If the NBA and NHL start playoff seasons this summer and the MLB returns, for instance, “it could be one of the bigger summers that we’ve ever had.”



&#8211; <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/sergeiklebnikov/">Sergei Klebnikov</a>, Forbes Staff, <a href="https://www.forbes.com/markets">Markets</a>

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Here Are All The Crazy Things People Are Betting On In The Absence Of Live Sports

Don’t tell Akin Alabi there isn’t enough time in the day to do everything. He just might tell you off.
At 41, he has built multiple businesses and is making money and time for more.
Alabi is the founder of NairaBET, Nigeria’s first and leading sports betting platform, a company he started in 2009 after he identified what he calls “a starving crowd”.
By that, he means a customer base willing and able to pay for services enough for him to make a sizeable profit.
Besides NairaBET, Alabi owns a small football club, has a book-writing business, is into digital marketing, business coaching and seminars, and is also contesting for a seat in parliament in the 2019 Nigerian elections.
The entrepreneur-investor likes to spend his days identifying specific gaps in the market and providing solutions to address them.
<a href="http://www.forbesafrica.com/sport/2018/05/23/nigeria-where-football-is-life/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">READ MORE: Nigeria; Where Football Is Life</a>
Over the years, he has identified many ‘starving crowds’. He found the first one just after completing a diploma in business administration in 2001. At the time, there was a growing desire for Nigerian youth to travel abroad, especially to Canada, in search of greener pastures.
According to data from the Canadian immigration service, as many as 27,625 immigrants from Nigeria were residing in Canada by 2011.
Alabi tried his luck too.
In 2001, after his visa got rejected, he decided to collate his experiences navigating the complicated visa application process and sell that knowledge online to first-time applicants.
<blockquote>&#8220;So anything I learned, I created the information pack and I put it online and sold it,&#8221;</blockquote>
“I started downloading information tutorials and videos about the Canadian application process. I put all the information together and said some people will be interested in this so let me put it out there for sale. So in January 2003, I launched my first business, which was selling information products, and the first information product was this Canadian visa package,” says Alabi.
The guide was an instant hit. Alabi was selling it at N10,000 ($28) per copy and over 100 copies later, he knew he had struck a gold mine. It was time to find other crowds. Alabi decided to share his experiences making money online through his new startup in another how-to guide, which also found demand. After the success of the two digital products, Alabi decided to register his company at the Nigerian Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC).
“I went there myself and I did everything myself and I was surprised I didn’t need a lawyer. So I created another information product – how to register your business with the CAC without a lawyer in 21 days or less. I put that out and people were buying. So anything I learned, I created the information pack and I put it online and sold it,” says Alabi.
He had stumbled on a booming industry. According to Stratistics MRC, the global e-learning market accounted for $165.21 billion in 2015 and is expected to reach $275.10 billion by 2022 growing at a CAGR of 7.5% during the forecast period. The flexible learning, low cost and easy accessibility of the market bolstered by the increasing proliferation in the internet during the dotcom boom, presented Alabi with a hungry market eager to grab anything offered online.
<div id="attachment_36929" style="width: 224px" class="wp-caption alignleft"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-36929" class="size-medium wp-image-36929" src="https://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/EM5A1322-214x300.jpg" alt="" width="214" height="300" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/EM5A1322-214x300.jpg 214w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/EM5A1322-300x420.jpg 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/EM5A1322-600x840.jpg 600w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/EM5A1322-768x1076.jpg 768w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/EM5A1322-731x1024.jpg 731w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/EM5A1322.jpg 1071w" sizes="(max-width: 214px) 100vw, 214px" />Akin Alabi. Photo provided.</div>
Alabi’s story is one of organic growth. Setting goals and achieving them is a prominent theme in his new book Small Business, Big Money: How to Start, Grow, and Turn Your Small Business Into a Cash Generating Machine, where he presents a practical guide for startups looking to scale.
“As early as I can remember, I wanted to be rich. I was fixated on wealth because I did not experience wealth growing up. It is something I believe gives you freedom. Freedom to do things you really wanted to do and freedom to impact this world. You can help the less privileged and also give your family the basic comfort of everything they want,” says Alabi. “I know money is not the most important thing in life but it is reasonably close to oxygen in terms of importance.”
After the success of his digital offerings, business began to slow down, but Alabi wanted more growth. He decided he would venture out of Nigeria to the land of milk and honey, in search of that elusive wealth.
“I got to the UK and wanted to work. I looked at the potential of what I could make and after four months, reality dawned on me. I didn’t want to become an illegal immigrant and felt I was better off doing what I was doing in Nigeria. So I said ‘I had something going for me, it might not be big but there was potential’. I said ‘let me go back and make it bigger’. I was not investing in the business so it was time to do it properly.”
But before leaving the UK, a chance encounter with the bookers would lead to the serial entrepreneur’s most lucrative venture yet. His brother called him from London while he was in the town of Milton Keynes to make a bet in an online sports shop for a football game so they could win some money.
“So I played and I made some money and then I played again and I lost and I played again and I won. And I said ‘wow, anybody can do this and people in Nigeria will love it’. So I wrote down on paper, how to make money from football betting. It was just 14 pages and I put it online and I called my friend in Nigeria to help me go and run an advert in the local newspapers,” says Alabi.
He invested N200,000 ($555) in the advert and made N450,000 ($1,248). That demand was going to progress from online content to a new customer base wanting a platform to bet on sports.
<a href="http://www.forbesafrica.com/entreprenuers/2017/08/02/success-bag-entrepreneur/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">READ MORE: Success Is In The Bag For This Entrepreneur</a>
“So those that bought the information product from me started reaching out to me that the website I recommended they should bet on did not work in Nigeria. And I was like ‘wow, you people are actually taking this seriously’. They wanted to place bets from $100 to $750. So I got thinking, these people are actually sending money to me abroad to place bets for them. Isn’t there anyone in Nigeria that has a business like this? And there was no one. So I said to myself ‘I have to create this platform’.”
That was almost a decade ago. He could not afford the software to create the platform at the time, which cost almost $1 million so he used a local developer to create his first platform. Today, NairaBET, a major player in the online sports betting market, has steadily transformed itself from just a football betting platform to a 360-degree sports booking platform covering digital, SMS, apps and retail betting. And, they have a new million-euro software upgrade in place, according to Alabi.
The total value of the global sports betting market is difficult to estimate because of the lack of consistency in how it is regulated in some parts of the world. Betting makes up about 30% to 40% of the global gambling market, which also includes lotteries, casinos, poker and other gaming, according to a report in Reuters.
This has led to challenges regulating the sector in Nigeria with issues arising from double taxation from the Lagos State government. But Alabi is hopeful these issues will be resolved once there is proper legislation of the sector. In the meantime, he is betting on a career in Nigerian politics and the corridors of power.

Tag: Betting

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