Caesars and Wynn Resorts push hard into sports betting ahead of NFL season
All eyes are in the sports betting sector are on how the action breaks once the NFL season begins. Heading into NFL football, Morgan Stanley says Caesars Entertainment (NASDAQ:CZR) and Wynn Resorts (NASDAQ:WYNN) have seen significant improvement with their online sports betting and iGaming initiatives as they deploy more marketing capital to grabbing market share.
The battle for market share in new competitive states like Arizona, Louisiana and Maryland is being watched closely by the firm with overall sports betting action anticipated to ramp up with the NFL season starting next week. While analyst Thomas Allen and team say the near-term marketing spending could obscure who the long-term winners will be, they see WYNN and CZR potentially making things trickier for DraftKings (NASDAQ:DKNG), Penn National Gaming's (NASDAQ:PENN) Barstool Sports and Flutter Entertainment's (OTCPK:PDYPY) Fanduel in the near term in the battle for share.
" We found WYNN has seen an increase of app downloads from 1-2% in Nov-April to ~3-6% the past 4 months, while CZR has seen downloads go from 7% in June/July to 21% in Aug."
Looking outside the major players, GAN Limited (NASDAQ:GAN) is seen as an interesting pick as the quality of technology becomes a more crucial factor in iGaming and sports betting.
Meanwhile, the Roundhill Sports Betting and iGaming ETF (NYSEARCA:BETZ) is a catch-all for he sector.