Right to the Source is back this week, with Ed Birkin and Robin Harrison tackling the recent ECJ ruling that is shaking up the German market. The pair also return to a familiar obsession: are prediction markets living up to the hype?
ECJ ruling: a wake-up call or a damp squib?
The pair open with the ECJ ruling handed down on 16 April, which rules that member states are within their right to pursue operators for not adhering to local gambling laws. It also gives the green light to players seeking to reclaim losses against operators based in another member state.
Ed thinks it doesn’t mean much – players entered contracts knowingly, lost fairly and are now looking for ways to get around them. Robin, on the other hand, notes that a lot of companies like Evoke and Mr Green are hardly in the rudest of health. A fresh wave of player claims could prove a death knell for some, especially on top of rising remote gaming duty in the UK.
Prediction markets: the numbers behind the noise
The episode then turns to Ed’s recently published analysis, and he makes his case with data.
The Super Bowl headline says the prediction market volume of $1.6 billion overtook the sportsbook handle of $1.4 billion. But volume and handle are not the same thing. Once normalised, the real game-equivalent figure drops to $317 million. In states where legal sportsbooks already operate, prediction markets captured just 7% of handle and 2% of revenue.
The Masters told a slightly better story, with prediction markets reaching an estimated 12% handle share. Yet golf and futures trading are the formats these platforms are built for. If that is the ceiling in their most natural environment, the hype looks hard to justify.
To put things in perspective: Kalshi handled 22 million matched transactions during Masters week. Betfair, at its peak, was doing over £120m a day. Ed’s point is clear: prediction markets are not new.
Original article: https://igamingbusiness.com/prediction-markets/right-to-the-source-ecj-ruling-prediction-market/
