Although sports betting is now legal in Massachusetts, sportsbooks will not go live until January for retail and March for online betting. As such, we upgraded its position to “Legal but not operational.”
California voters rejected two ballot initiatives that would have legalized sports betting in the state. (More on that below.) We’ve downgraded its status to “Dead Legislation in 2022.”
California Sports Betting
The midterms were unusually exciting this year. Among a variety of press-worthy election results, Californians resoundingly voted down sports betting in the state.
Two bills were on the ballot:
Prop 26 - would have allowed betting only in tribal casinos and the 4 horse tracks in-person; failed 70% - 30%
Prop 27 - which would have allowed mobile and online sports betting throughout the state; failed 83% - 17%
To date, 36 states plus DC have opted to take advantage of the tax revenue afforded by sports betting and passed legislation to legalize it. Tax revenue, especially for Prop 27, would have brought California an estimated $200m-$500m annually.
Prop 26 would have benefitted Native American tribes by expanding their offerings while card rooms largely opposed the bill over fears related to a provision that would have allowed civil suits against card club owners. Prop 27 was favored by popular sportsbook operators and was opposed by Native American tribes who feared competing with industry giants like DraftKings and FanDuel.
So why did both of these bills fail? The tremendous war of words and the almost $500m spent on advertising between supporters on both sides confused and deterred voters from lending their support to either measure. They were doomed to fail from the start. Card rooms, Native American tribes and sportsbooks all have enormous power and are deeply vested in the outcomes, and none of them were afraid to spend big in support of the outcomes they wanted. Unfortunately for bettors, these groups had strong messages, but all they managed to accomplish was confusing the electorate and inspiring inaction.
At this point, we believe legal sports betting may not come to California until 2026-27.
For more information on the dynamics at play, we recommend reading this analysis by NPR.
Celebrating a Few Wins
SIS Competitive Gaming
We’re proud to support our partner SIS Ltd in offering the most complete eSports betting solution on the market, designed specifically for sportsbooks. SIS Competitive Gaming's 24/7 head-to-head CS:GO, FIFA, and NBA 2K games between skilled gamers feature betting commentary, visible integrity referees, and real-time video.
Manheim UK Hybrid Auction
Congratulations to our partner Manheim UK for launching a new Hybrid Auction program with lightweight commercial vehicles!
Phenix’s patented SyncWatch™ technology evens the playing field by providing a reliable, uniform viewing experience anywhere in the world.
SBJ Dealmakers
Our lead investor Keith Bank from KB Partners joined one of the panels at the SBJ Dealmakers earlier this month. It was inspiring to hear him representing Phenix and sharing his wisdom as a seasoned sports tech investor. A common theme the investors on-stage agreed to was that they’re more focused on the who than the what when making any investment decisions.
New Docs Site Launches
We’re happy to announce that we’ve launched our new docs site. It's been completely redesigned to be the key information resource for our customers. It houses our "Getting Started" guides, "Knowledge Base" articles and "Documentation" for our SDKs and APIs, as well as helpful resources like code examples and a link to our customer portal.
Meet Phenix Manager of Engineering
Jorge-Luis Sanchez-Ponz
Jorge has been living in Switzerland for over 12 years. Originally from Madrid, Spain, Jorge has a dual MS in Electrical and Computer Engineering (UPM, Spain) and a MS in Information Technology Management (Universität Stuttgart, Germany).
He received an MBA from Instituto de Empresa and a PDG from IESE Business School. He’s experienced in leading software development teams in the UK, France, Germany, Spain, and Switzerland.
Jorge joined the company in 2022 as Engineering Manager in Zurich. He’s responsible for supervising and coordinating a team of engineers in Europe who deliver high quality software solutions for the Phenix real-time video streaming platform.
Jorge lives with his family in Unterentfelden, a beautiful green village near Aarau. His wife is an architect and works as BIM Expert at Siemens Smart Infrastructuret. They have two kids, Nicolas (5 years old), and Oscar (3.5 years old). Nicolas likes construction toys, reading amazing books with lots of pictures and is a talented singer. Oscar likes socializing, is very open and funny, and enjoys eating tons of mum’s food. Together with his family, Jorge enjoys gardening, traveling and exploring the world’s cuisines.
