Sporttrade, the first regulated sports betting exchange in America, has added Indiana and Louisiana to its roster of future states, joining Colorado and New Jersey.
Sporttade is partnering with Penn National Gaming in Indiana and with Caesars in Louisiana. While the company’s product has not launched yet, it is widely expected that New Jersey will be first out of the gate sometime in mid-2022.
“We are incredibly humbled to be partnering with two of the most recognized gaming leaders to bring our differentiated sports trading platform to customers in Louisiana and Indiana,” Sporttrade CEO Alex Kane said in a press release. “Penn National and Caesars Entertainment believe in our vision of elevating the sports betting industry and see the opportunity to make sports betting more akin to capital markets and tap into growth of retail stock and crypto traders, as well as attracting traditional sports bettors.”
Exchange betting, which has existed in Europe for over two decades, is akin to stock market trading.
Did you manage to buy #Baylor when they were down in the second half last night? 📈#CBB | #GamblingTwitter pic.twitter.com/Tk5Hn5xA6O
— Sporttrade (@sporttrade_app) February 22, 2022
“It’s a sports betting exchange that operates very closely to how a stock exchange operates,” Kane told NJ Online Gambling last year. “So a stock exchange matches buyers and sellers of stock. Sporttrade lists sports outcomes, like the Sixers to beat the Bucks, and we match buyers and sellers on the outcomes. A contract settles at 100 if the outcome occurs, and zero if it doesn’t.”
Liquidity is guaranteed by market makers, just like with a stock exchange, and based on that interview last year, Kane believes US bettors will flock to the site once it goes live.
“There’s not enough of a difference between betting on the share price of Apple, or the price of Brent crude oil, or whether the Sixers are going to lose or win, to merit this massive rift in how the customer is treated, what the customer experiences — the efficiency, the transparency, the consumer protections,” Kane said. “All we’re saying is that the sports betting customer deserves the same treatment they get in capital markets. We want to make that a reality. Nothing is new in what we’re doing — we’re just applying the principles of capital markets to a new asset class, and that’s sports.”
