Betr announced Thursday that it has launched a "Group Mode" for its peer-to-peer Betr Picks product, following up a soft launch for its enhanced sportsbook product offerings in both Ohio and Virginia.
The "Group Mode" launch took place in Florida and Massachusetts, with another eight states — most notably Arizona and Virginia — set to join imminently. That will raise the number of states where Betr Picks is live to 33. The 34 total jurisdictions, when including Washington D.C., cover 65% of the U.S. population.
The new-look Betr sportsbook will also be launched in Indiana and Maryland — where they have already been granted licenses — in the coming months. Betr also hopes to launch in Pennsylvania, Colorado and Kentucky in 2025 as those respective states are reviewing the sports gaming and media company's applications for licenses.
"The two verticals support each other in a pretty similar way to how FanDuel and DraftKings were ultimately able to ascend to a market leadership position in this industry," said Betr CEO and co-founder Joey Levy in a phone interview with Action Network. "We think there's going to be a second wave of businesses where the companies who have innovated in fantasy sports better are going to be significantly better positioned than other sportsbook operators that may have ignored fantasy as a category.
"We're going to have a customer base spanning the country that will ultimately be able to cross over into the sportsbook business."
The Genesis of "Group Mode"
Betr Picks has been around for just under a year, but has quickly taken hold throughout the country at what Levy called "a pretty significant level of scale."
Positive user feedback, plus social media strategy, has allowed Betr Picks to be competitive with regards to customer acquisition costs, and the innovation of "Group Mode" — which includes more than two people going head-to-head if desired — fits within most states' rules and regulations. Much of the past year saw daily fantasy sports operators come under scrutiny as state regulators looked to draw more clear lines of separation from sportsbooks.
"As a business that's always looking to expand and innovate, we constantly think of ways we can further enhance the user experience," Levy explained. "You're able to enhance the product experience by now allowing people to compete against each other … you're enabling the business to launch in more states."
Can Betr's New-Look Sportsbook Move the Needle?
Though primarily focused on micro-betting for traditional sportsbook wagering, the enhanced Betr Sportsbook is adding the all-important markets of parlays and same-game parlays for both pre-game and in-play betting. There will also be player props, futures and "exotics" markets, in addition to the traditional moneyline, spread and totals markets.
This is a natural expansion for the sportsbook, which started more than a year ago when Betr acquired Chameleon to start building out its platform. That continued with a partnership with Huddle Tech, which was furthered last week when Betr acquired a license for Huddle Tech's technology.
"We made a set of decisions that put us on a path to diversifying beyond micro-betting and offering all the content that users would come to expect from a sportsbook operator," said Levy about building an internal sports betting platform. "(The) product integrations have really fed into this strategy of getting to first, content and betting market parity with incumbent sportsbook operators, but ultimately product superiority.
"Because we think ultimately we'll have a more expansive product experience than the market leaders, and we also think that we're going to continue to win on simple intuitive user experiences that are easy and intuitive enough for anyone to understand, even if you've never bet on sports before."
Challenging Proving Grounds Await
The decision to invest internally in a sportsbook product puts a new kind of pressure on Betr. It has performed modestly in both Ohio and Virginia, having been live for 20 months in the former and almost one year in the latter. In between, Betr withdrew from the Massachusetts market in February after totaling $236,000 in revenue and $3 million handle in nine-plus months.
It has been in Ohio since the state launched sports wagering on New Year's Day last year and generated $9.8 million in total handle over the first 18 months. Betr's $685,300 in adjusted revenue lags behind the nearly $1.2 million in promotional spend, which it can't deduct for tax purposes in the Buckeye State.
Betr launched in Virginia last September and has totaled $1.1 million in wagers in the Old Dominion. August is the last month Betr was allowed to deduct promotional credits against its gross revenue, and it entered July with -$81,900 in AGR while grossing $46,700. Its promotional spend has lightened after a heavy January, with the outlay representing 6.3% of its total $338,400 in accepted wagers over the past five months.
Those spends, though, are barely a drop in the bucket for incumbent operators. As a point of comparison, FanDuel's average monthly promotional spend of $8.9 million in the first half of 2024 in Ohio is more than seven times Betr's total promotional spend. Levy acknowledged Betr learned with its previous sportsbook rollout last year that "it was just not really built to compete with the FanDuels and the DraftKings of the world," but it also was an external platform with little internal investment.
Building on Chameleon was the first time Levy and Betr realized they had a competitive product, one he feels is comfortably among the top six among fantasy sports operators. And he is confident this version of Betr sportsbook can be successful.
"When we build our own product and technology, we build competitive, market-leading products, and when we make paid user acquisition investments behind those products, we can compete for share," he said. "And that's ultimately what we plan on doing with Betr Sportsbook, and the soft launch of the new Betr Sportsbook is an important initial step for that."
Looking Ahead
Levy said that after "Group Mode" launches in Virginia, there will be a simple on-screen switch that will allow users to toggle between Betr Picks and Betr Sportsbook. This will be a differentiator from operators who conduct both sports betting and fantasy sports.
Also in his line of vision was Pennsylvania, where Betr hopes to launch internet casino gaming. Betr's social media prowess remains at the forefront, led by co-founder, professional boxer and influencer Jake Paul, and other personalities, including Derek Sullivan, continue to bring a desired demographic into the sports betting and fantasy sports spheres.
"We've designed a lot of ways forward here and a lot of growth ahead of us," Levy said. "I would just say the most important thing we could do at Betr is just keeping our heads down and continue executing, continue working hard, continue to build the best product experiences for our customers.
"I think if we just keep our heads down and keep doing those things, the score will take care of itself and we'll be successful."
