Influencer-turned-boxer Jake Paul on Monday announced the creation of a micro sports betting site called Betr.
The company raised $50 million from a variety of investors, drawing from the ownership groups of the San Francisco 49ers, Boston Celtics and Miami Marlins, as well as horse racing conglomerate Stronach Group.
The list also features powerful names, including Travis Scott, Ezekiel Elliott, Dez Bryant and Richard Sherman.
Simplebet, a business-to-business product development firm, is providing software technology for Betr and will receive minority equity in the company.
While Simplebet has been into micro-betting since 2018, Monday's announcement pushes this type of betting — focused more on pitch-by-pitch, at bats, next plays and drives more than game outcomes and totals — into the forefront.
"I wasn't really into sports betting, but as soon as [Simplebet co-founder] Joey [Levy] showed me the Betr demo, I was jumping off the edge of my seat," Paul told Action Network. "It actually didn't matter whether I won or lost; it was that the result was happening in that moment."
Betr says it will launch as a free-to-play app in the coming weeks in all 50 states, with a state-by-state rollout that includes actual cash betting.
Micro-bets have long been dismissed by European bookmakers, but Levy's premise in starting Simplebet was that soccer wasn't amenable to small bets, especially compared to games favored by Americans, which have more natural pauses.
Levy said that this past football season, one-third of college football bets handle taken in by DraftKings — which has a partnership with Simplebet — were on micro-bets, with bettors betting on smaller window wagers like drives.
"And that's on a legacy platform that has those type of bets weaved in with all the others," Levy said.
There's evidence that bets that pay off quicker are key to an impatient younger generation of bettors.
Look no further than the recent popularity of the No Run First Inning (NRFI) bet that has captured the imagination of baseball bettors who win or lose in 10 minutes.
Said Paul: "It's the roller-coaster ride, getting that instant gratification just like TikTok. And right after that, you have 15 more seconds of exhilaration. That's where we want to be."
