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“Operators failing compliance checks is never a good look,” he says. Campaigners often claim that financial sanctions are priced in and that the Commission should revoke more licences, although Waugh does not believe operators view settlements merely as a cost of doing business.
Nor are regulatory breaches unique to gambling. Waugh notes that Tesco was fined more than £8 million for food hygiene failings in 2021, without parliamentarians demanding that it should be prevented from selling cornflakes.
“There are valid arguments to be made in relation to raising the barriers to licensing, but this may come at a cost of diminishing competition and entrepreneurship,” he says.
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As Macquarie analyst Chad Beynon points out, prediction markets generated $4.3 billion in taker volume during the first week of September without any help from the NFL, building on momentum from the 2026 World Cup. However, the NFL’s impact was immediate, with taker volume hitting a daily record during Week 1 of the campaign.
With all that in mind, it’s not surprising that Macquarie expects sports event contracts will drive approximately 80% of taker volume this year, but Beynon sees other categories growing over the long term.
“We expect non-sports categories such as economics, politics, crypto, and entertainment to gain share over time,” says the analyst.
How to play Fire Joker
“The sustainability in the operational improvements and in our market share gains are clearly there,” he said. “Those are real, and they are happening right now.
“Our ambition, as we outlined in March, has always been to change the trajectory of our land-based business, which I think we now have done. Our ambition is now to continue to take market share in the land-based casinos.”
The CEO highlighted the synergies between Sun International’s land-based and online operations, with the potential of capturing more of its existing customers’ online activity.
