{"id":68132,"date":"2018-08-10T06:55:06","date_gmt":"2018-08-10T13:55:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/gambling-with-an-edge\/?p=68132"},"modified":"2018-08-10T07:44:36","modified_gmt":"2018-08-10T14:44:36","slug":"draftkings-market-disruptor","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/gambling-with-an-edge\/draftkings-market-disruptor\/","title":{"rendered":"Is DraftKings a Market Disruptor?"},"content":{"rendered":"

DraftKings went live this week with a mobile sports betting app and web-based sports book. In doing so they\u00a0became the first legal US entity outside of Nevada to offer an online solution for sports wagering. Their product is sharp \u2026 in more ways than one. After betting with their product for a week now, I\u2019ve begun to wonder: Is DraftKings a market disruptor? The title, market disruptor, has become somewhat of a buzzword lately. It is essentially a company that comes along and changes the way a market has traditionally worked. For instance, Uber and Lyft disrupted the well-established taxi business. Sports wagering is due for a market disruptor to arise. I\u2019d say it’s overdue and there is room for more than just one.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

What Makes This Different?<\/h5>\n

First, the most obvious disruptive force. There is no physical sports book. No large cavernous space with multiple TV feeds. No cocktail waitresses. There are no ticket writers and\u00a0 no conspicuously placed tip jars. It\u2019s all online or in the app. You can sign up, deposit, and withdraw — all without leaving your house. There will always be a place for making sports wagering feel like a social exercise. This alone isn\u2019t a market disruption, we\u2019ve all known sports wagering was headed in this direction for a long time.<\/p>\n

However, DraftKings launched with some innovative features that haven\u2019t been tried in the US before. The most notable is an import from European books: the ability to cash out a wager before it’s been fully decided. Much like placing an insurance bet in blackjack, this is very rarely the correct play. In my experience, the cash-out amount offered in relation to the live implied probability of\u00a0the wager is abysmal. However, this will be a wildly popular feature for recreational bettors who want to secure cash-in-hand rather than sweat the last leg of a parlay. What makes the cash-out option especially bad is that DraftKings offers a plethora of in-game betting. You\u2019ll likely find better odds hedging somewhere in the in-game betting than taking their offer.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Emphasis on In-Game Wagering<\/h5>\n

Speaking of their in-game betting, you\u2019ll spend half the game just running down all the possible bets. Bettors haven\u2019t seen this level of in-game betting since the early days of CG Technology and their fabled Midas supercomputer. For baseball, you can bet on individual innings and groups of innings (first\u00a03, last 3). You can bet on hits, home runs, and plenty of alternate lines. That’s just the tip of the lines available. They said eventually you\u2019ll be able to bet on individual pitches in the game. Given their background in DFS, I\u2019m actually surprised there are not more in-game player props. Perhaps we\u2019ll see that emerge in the NFL season. Their expansive offering for in-game betting extends to other sports as well. golf, tennis, and soccer matches around the world as they happen all have betting options.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Opinions Matter<\/h5>\n

If you’ve followed the coverage of the DraftKings launch so far, you\u2019ve probably also seen\u00a0that they’re employing a rather large vig-spread. It’s been noted in various media that the spread between either side of a wager is higher than the industry average. The narrative being DraftKings, coming from the DFS world where the vig is around 10%, doesn\u2019t want to gamble in the sports betting world where 5% is more accepted. However, if you look closer at the lines, DraftKings is taking positions on games. On many games on the board, they offer the best line available on a certain side. As a price-conscious bettor, I welcome sports books that\u00a0have an opinion on the game. Sometimes my opinion will differ from their opinion and there is value to be had.<\/p>\n

Having sports books that want to march to the beat to their own drum is very beneficial for sports bettors. If DraftKings, or anyone, opted to just flatly straddle the standard lines (-115\/-115 when the rest of the world is -110\/-110 as an example), I would be among the first to voice my displeasure. However, if they want to offer -104\/-117 when the rest of the world is -110\/-110, then I applaud their desire to have some skin in the game. For too long, the sports betting industry has moved in lockstep. The line originates at some offshore sports book and gets hammered into place by sharp bettors willing to play it for low limits. Next, the rest of the world puts out the line and quickly reacts anytime their Don Best screen flashes red.<\/p>\n

On the subject of Don Best, as sports wagering has expanded recently, the list of sports books listed on the Don Best screen has not. DraftKings is not listed on Don Best, nor is FanDuel. That doesn\u2019t mean they don\u2019t subscribe to Don Best and use the service to monitor the industry. It does mean that they aren’t looking to fully buy into bookmaking socialism. As an advantage player, I want variety. I want options. I welcome this approach even if it means I have to work a little harder to line shop.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Conclusion<\/h5>\n

Let\u2019s get back to the question I posed in the title of this post: Is DraftKings a market disruptor? None of the different features they\u2019ve introduced so far have individually turned this industry on its ear. However, collectively they point in\u00a0a direction which could be disruptive. Valuing live betting more than pregame betting. Featuring a large array of derivative bets. Having opinions (and taking positions) on games. These are all steps that could lead to a change in how bookmaking has been\u00a0traditionally conducted. If DraftKings doesn\u2019t evolve into a market disruptor, there’s still hope. There will be other companies like DraftKings who will look to enter\u00a0the sports wagering space. It\u2019ll be exciting to see what innovations are in store. Each new thing brings about the question that every advantage player lives to ponder. Can I beat this?<\/p>\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"youtube\"<\/a>\"instagram\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

DraftKings went live this week with a mobile sports betting app and web-based sports book. In doing so they\u00a0became the first legal US entity outside of Nevada to offer an online solution for sports wagering. Their product is sharp \u2026 in more ways than one. After betting with their product for a week now, I\u2019ve […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":26,"featured_media":63070,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"spay_email":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false},"categories":[19],"tags":[240,1800,1797,773,231,230,1799,1798,1801,1796,174,1199],"yoast_head":"\nIs DraftKings a Market Disruptor? - Gambling With An Edge<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/gambling-with-an-edge\/draftkings-market-disruptor\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Is DraftKings a Market Disruptor? - Gambling With An Edge\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"DraftKings went live this week with a mobile sports betting app and web-based sports book. 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