Catherine Sayre
Appearances
The Journal.
Their L.A. Neighborhood Burned. Two Residents Find What’s Left.
Quick, quick, quick, in and out. Yeah, we understand.
The Journal.
Their L.A. Neighborhood Burned. Two Residents Find What’s Left.
When you go in your house, it's not to go in and hang out. My house is gone. Be very careful.
The Journal.
Their L.A. Neighborhood Burned. Two Residents Find What’s Left.
Whatever valuables you're going to get or medicine, it's whatever you can get in and out within like five minutes.
The Journal.
How Parlays Became the Biggest Bet in Sports
So it's clear that the companies see this as the future of the business.
The Journal.
How Parlays Became the Biggest Bet in Sports
A little, well, I've been covering it for five and a half years.
The Journal.
How Parlays Became the Biggest Bet in Sports
Sports betting is still a relatively new industry in the US. So it's been a fierce competitive landscape. DraftKings, FanDuel, these other competitors have just poured money into their marketing, advertising, giving away these bonus bets, as they call it, credits you can use when you sign up. And so they are under pressure to become profitable.
The Journal.
How Parlays Became the Biggest Bet in Sports
Yeah, so FanDuel and DraftKings had to report to investors that they're going to get less revenue than they were expecting because so many favorites won in the NFL season that customers' bettors were beating the books this season.
The Journal.
How Parlays Became the Biggest Bet in Sports
No one can really predict the future. The sportsbook's going to do their best. But, you know, what plays out on the field is out of their control.
The Journal.
How Parlays Became the Biggest Bet in Sports
VIPs are sometimes known as whales. These are the bettors who are placing huge sums of money on games. So $10,000, $20,000. And these are the most profitable bettors for these companies. So the companies have focused on them, giving them freebies, betting credits, tickets to games, just that VIP treatment that will keep them spending.
The Journal.
How Parlays Became the Biggest Bet in Sports
You're talking about people who are spending tens of thousands of dollars, hundreds of thousands of dollars in some cases. You know, companies are risking fueling addiction through these programs.
The Journal.
How Parlays Became the Biggest Bet in Sports
So the companies really want to expand that casual better base, get people who bet less but bet regularly and more of those people to create that less risky customer base.
The Journal.
How Parlays Became the Biggest Bet in Sports
So FanDuel's parent company, Flutter, has a sports betting brand in Australia called SportsBet. And they heard from a gambler who was like, hey, I know I can make a parlay bet on different games, but why can't I make some predictions within one game and bet on that? And so the math behind that's complicated. They got to work on it and they figured it out and started offering it.
The Journal.
How Parlays Became the Biggest Bet in Sports
Same game parlays took off almost immediately. As soon as FanDuel put these out, the companies could tell it was taking off. The competitors all quickly followed.
The Journal.
How Parlays Became the Biggest Bet in Sports
It's become its own little ecosystem doing the marketing for these companies, right? So people who are touting their big wins, they're posting their bet slips, which is, you know, shows their parlays. They say, follow along with me, tail me, which means make the same bet. Let's see if we can win this.
The Journal.
How Parlays Became the Biggest Bet in Sports
Betters just lose more on parlays. The odds are so long. So for example, FanDuel is offering a four-leg same-game parlay on the Super Bowl this weekend, where you're going to bet that Saquon Barkley, Xavier Worthy, Kareem Hunt, and Jalen Hurts will all score a touchdown in the game.
The Journal.
How Parlays Became the Biggest Bet in Sports
It's huge. It's huge. And you would think gamblers might shy away from that, but apparently they're not.
The Journal.
How Parlays Became the Biggest Bet in Sports
Sportsbooks are trying to protect their bottom line. How they set the odds are critical to their business. With parlays, the setting of odds gets really complicated because... What you're betting on, those events, how a quarterback performs and how a tight end performs, they're tied together.
The Journal.
How Parlays Became the Biggest Bet in Sports
So if the quarterback's having a terrible game, good chances are the tight end won't be having a great game either. So they use lots of math, modeling, looking at what's happening in sports news to set these odds. But they're going to figure out what they think is or the actual odds of that parlay. And then they're going to set the odds even more in their favor to protect their bottom lines.
The Journal.
How Parlays Became the Biggest Bet in Sports
And to a certain extent, it's sort of a mystery about how they're doing this.