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What is Santas Stack?
Entain warned that a sharp rise in MGD could prompt customers to migrate out of the regulated market, estimating that up to £1 billion in gambling stakes could shift to the black market.
The company cited analyses from the Office for Budget Responsibility which suggested previous gambling tax rises had reduced expected tax receipts, including a £500m reduction in forecast receipts for 2029-30. This revenue, writes David, would flow to the black market.
A new report commissioned by Euromat, and produced by Regulus Partners and Helios, has estimated that Europe’s black market has sustained a compound annual growth rate of 18% between 2019 and 2026, and will be worth up to €13 billion by the end of the year.
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There’s widespread belief that old guard media companies are incentivized to feature event contract data on their sites or reference it in select publications as a way of better connecting with younger readers and viewers.
Then there are the financial implications, namely new revenue streams. Prediction market operators typically pay media companies to integrate their data while some outlets also earn referral commissions for driving new business to yes/no exchanges.
At least one well-known cable network has a financial stake in a major prediction market operator.
About Santas Stack
“MGM offers a more diversified investment case, with BetMGM, regional gaming and Las Vegas operations reducing reliance on online sports betting alone,” says Beynon. Robinson makes the same point. “It is a Las Vegas and Macau property business with a betting JV attached, and that is precisely why it has held up.”
Entain sits somewhere between the two models. It has significant international scale and a valuable stake in BetMGM, but also more debt and greater exposure to UK taxation, as well as general regulatory turbulance across Europe.
The four analysts arrive at much the same broad conclusion, albeit by different routes.
