Betr CEO Joey Levy has said the Miami-based operator can succeed without online sports betting and igaming by focusing on its multi-vertical Super App.
Betr, which Levy founded in 2022 with influencer-turned-boxer Jake Paul, began life as a micro-betting-focused sports betting startup hailed at the time as the “TikTokifcation of sports betting”.
Levy had founded Simplebet, a supplier focused on micro-betting markets which was eventually sold to DraftKings.
However, since then, Betr has pivoted to now offering a DFS pick’em product, a social sportsbook and casino, arcade games and most recently, prediction markets powered by Polymarket.
When announcing the launch of predictions, alongside the Super App housing the different products, the operator said it had fully expanded beyond a previous “narrower focus” of micro-betting.
In addition to its social casino product being live in 35 states, Betr has also announced its intentions to enter the pack-ripping space with Betr Rips scheduled for launch before the end of this year. Fellow DFS firms PrizePicks and Underdog have both moved into ‘reveal gaming’ recently as well.
Betr reports to have one million paying users and claims to be the “world’s most-followed real-money gaming brand on social media”.
Broader perspective
Speaking to EGR, Levy explained the turning point came in 2024 as Kalshi launched nationwide event contracts and moved into sports under the purview of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission.
“The nail in the coffin for us was when Kalshi won its court case in October 2024 which enabled it to launch a nationwide product that has the mechanics it has,” Levy said.
“We started forming this broader perspective of the [gaming] world whereby there was more than one way to launch a real money gaming business in the US market, and you weren’t restricted to either regulated online sports betting (OSB) or regulated igaming on a state-by-state level with market access and the traditional legacy framework.
“Instead, there’s all these other products consumers clearly have a lot of demand for that you could launch and do so quickly in an innovative way, while still really caring about responsible gaming and everything we were already doing for the other state-by-state OSB framework.
“From a product innovation perspective, and an economic perspective, it made a lot of sense to focus on these adjacent verticals that still enabled us to accomplish our goals from a business perspective and for our customers but aren’t as restrictive as what we were doing previously.”
Despite pushing into prediction markets, with the offering undergoing a phased rollout with users in selected states, Levy said Betr’s product mix had given it some regulatory arbitrage.
His comments echo those made by DraftKings CEO and Underdog boss Jeremy Levine who both suggested their respective firms would be set up for success regardless of any eventual Supreme Court ruling.
The legality question around sports event contracts is expected to hit SCOTUS after a split between the Ninth Circuit Court and the Third Circuit Court.
Disappears overnight
Levy argues some other aspects of his business are “a lot more manageable” when compared to event contracts. “Look at prediction markets,” he said. “They lost 90% of the court cases they’ve been involved in recently, and they’ve lost two out of three cases when it comes to the federal circuits.
“That’s a binary regulatory risk. If SCOTUS decides sports prediction markets are to be regulated as sports gambling at state level, and that they’re not swaps, then 80% to 90% of that business disappears overnight.
“Whereas some of these other businesses, like social gaming for example, are more of a state-level consideration, which I would posit is a lot more manageable. We strongly believe everything we’re doing is a very legal, safe and productive form of gaming that’s really engaging for customers.”
The regulatory pushback against prediction markets is ongoing. For instance, the Ohio Casino Control Commission (OCCC) recently issued 10 cease-and-desist letters to prediction market platforms, including Polymarket, Robinhood, Novig and Underdog.
“We were just evaluating a lot of things that were happening in the space,” Levy explained. “When we initially launched daily fantasy sports pick’em back in September 2023, a lot of people were up in arms about that and opining that pick’em was illegal sports betting and it would get shut down.
“For context, we launched in 22 states, [but] we’re now in 34 states, and we plan on expanding to additional states.
“We’ve been monitoring the social gaming space and, over time, you have operators across both social sportsbook and social casino building really large cash-generated businesses and growing despite some of the noise in the category about it.”
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Joey Levy tells EGR that moving away from sports betting with verticals including prediction markets will still let the business he co-founded with Jake Paul “accomplish our goals”
The post Betr CEO: Non-online sports betting verticals “aren’t as restrictive” first appeared on EGR Intel.