Sports Betting Alliance chief: Sweepstakes operators are a “pandemic”
Jeremy Kudon suggests there is little difference between the likes of Fliff and licensed sportsbooks as he hits out at dual currency model
Sports Betting Alliance (SBA) president Jeremy Kudon has claimed the prevalence of sweepstakes operators in the US is a “pandemic” as he urged legal actors to band together.
Speaking on a Zoom webinar with Indian Gaming Association conference chair Victor Rocha and Indian Gaming Association executive director Jason Giles, Kudon laid out his concerns over the booming sector.
The SBA is a trade body comprised of FanDuel, DraftKings, BetMGM, and Fanatics, with Kudon a key lobbyist for sports betting and igaming legislation in the US.
During the webinar, Kudon gave a demonstration of how sweepstakes companies are operating, choosing to walk through High 5 Casino and Fliff’s sites.
The SBA chief took umbrage with the dual currency system, in which users can buy free-to-play coins, also known as ‘gold coins’, but will also receive coins that can be effectively used to gamble, often referred to as ‘sweeps coins’.
Having played both an online slot game and placed a bet on a soccer match, Kudon suggested the interface and experience was no different to that of a legal sportsbook operator.
He said: “In my opinion, I don’t really know the difference between this and DraftKings or FanDuel.
“I think people get confused when they’re on the gold coin side and they don’t realize. It would be like a speakeasy that looks like a soda shop, and then all of a sudden, I flip this and it becomes an actual bar.
“When you talk about [sweepstakes] and the dual currency, I think it can get confusing. When you see it, there’s not really a dual currency, there’s just one currency and that currency can be redeemed for cash.”
Kudon went on to make similar comments to those of California Nations Indian Gaming Association chair James Siva in that the deemed threat of sweepstakes operators had not been visible early on.
Kudon likened the rise of the vertical to the popular HBO show Games of Thrones, in which an invading force known as the ‘white walkers’ deliver a surprise attack amid a civil war.
He added: “I think G2E was sort of the ‘white walker’ moment. You have all these warring groups, and they’re just so focused on each other, and meanwhile, the real problem is over the wall.
“We’ve had the video gaming terminal operators, the brick-and-mortar casinos, the tribes, and us, and we’ve all been battling in these states and going after each other.
“Meanwhile, the real problem is right over there, the unregulated problem. I think this is a moment where the regulated operators, no matter who they are, and the sovereign tribal nations, band together, unite here, and let’s root out the unregulated gaming. It’s like a pandemic right now. Let’s root it out.”
Kudon’s webinar with Rocha and Giles followed last week’s session in which the tribal leaders claimed the sweepstakes and DFS+ operators were an “existential” issue to the market.
Rocha confirmed next week’s session will feature a representative from the American Gaming Association (AGA) as he welcomed “allies who are coming into this fight to get rid of this infestation.”