Betr chief says firm can thrive without sports betting licences

Betr chief executive Joey Levy has told EGR that his company does not need a regulated online sports betting or igaming licence to build a sustainable business, pointing instead to the multi-product Super App it has assembled since 2022.

Levy co-founded Betr with Jake Paul as a micro-betting operator, a launch once described as bringing a social-media sensibility to sports wagering. Levy had previously built Simplebet, a micro-betting supplier later acquired by DraftKings.

Betr has since broadened well beyond that original model. It now runs a daily fantasy pick'em product, a social sportsbook and casino, arcade-style games, and a prediction markets offering built on Polymarket's infrastructure. The company has described this expansion as a deliberate move away from the tighter remit it occupied in its early micro-betting days.

Its social casino product is now live in 35 states, and the firm has said it will launch a pack-ripping offering, Betr Rips, before the end of the year, joining fellow daily fantasy operators PrizePicks and Underdog in entering that category. Betr says it has one million paying users and calls itself the most-followed real-money gaming brand on social media.

Levy told EGR the strategic shift traces back to Kalshi's October 2024 court victory, which allowed the prediction markets exchange to roll out a nationwide sports-linked product under Commodity Futures Trading Commission oversight rather than state gambling regulation.

"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. That ruling, he added, convinced Betr there was "more than one way to launch a real money gaming business in the US market" beyond state-regulated sports betting or igaming.

He said the resulting product mix gives Betr a form of regulatory arbitrage, even as the company pushes its own prediction markets offering through a phased state-by-state rollout. His remarks echo comments attributed to DraftKings chief executive Jason Robins and Underdog's Jeremy Levine, both of whom have said their companies are positioned to withstand any Supreme Court ruling on event contracts.

That ruling is expected after a split between the Ninth Circuit and Third Circuit courts on whether sports-linked prediction contracts amount to gambling under state law.

Levy argued that other parts of Betr's business carry less exposure than prediction markets, which he said have lost the large majority of recent court challenges. "That's a binary regulatory risk," he said. "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." Social gaming, by contrast, is "a lot more manageable" because it sits within state-level rather than federal jurisdiction, he said.

The regulatory pressure on prediction markets is already visible. The Ohio Casino Control Commission recently issued ten cease-and-desist letters to platforms including Polymarket, Robinhood, Novig and Underdog.

Levy pointed to Betr's pick'em product as a precedent for riding out early scrutiny, noting it launched in 22 states in September 2023 amid claims it amounted to unlicensed sports betting, and has since expanded to 34 states with further growth planned.