Don’t Bet Parlays

You gotta chuckle at BetMGM’s latest tagline: The Sportsbook Born In Vegas. On the surface, it seems ok and kind of makes sense. But even allowing for the fact that most advertising is bullshit, the tagline is laughable.  

BetMGM is the result of an ill-advised joint venture between MGM Resorts and Entain, a UK-based company that’s been operating gambling sites in Europe for quite awhile. When the Supreme Court overturned PASPA, Entain (formerly GVC) found a partner in MGM and the rest is history – but most certainly not Las Vegas history.

BetMGM is run on Entain technology, which was built with the European gambler in mind. Bounce around the app long enough and you’ll see references to things like “baseball matches”, “favourites”, and “USD” (always important for an American business to specify the currency being used for transactions, right?). And perhaps most damaging to the success of BetMGM is the proliferation of Entain staffers throughout the organization, filling roles that would likely be better served by individuals with a stronger understanding of the gamblers, sports fans, culture and traditions in America. 

But beyond the obvious complications of placing an American face on what essentially is a European company, overselling the app’s gambling experience as something comparable to the Las Vegas experience is silly. It doesn’t work for obvious reasons; unless you think gambling in Vegas is akin to punching in bets on your phone at home…say, while you’re on the toilet. 

BetMGM. The Sportsbook Born In Europe. 

FanDuel’s Kick of Destiny is back for the NFL Playoffs. This year it features the Manning brothers, who up until about five minutes ago were shilling for Caesars. Please correct me if I’m wrong, but I don’t believe a celebrity ambassador has ever switched allegiance to a direct competitor in the history of advertising. On second thought, I don’t have time to wait for you, I’ll correct myself – last year Vince Vaughn may have made history when he jumped from, yes, Caesars, to do a (tone deaf) Super Bowl commercial for BetMGM. 

The good news, and bad news, for sportsbook marketers is that their customers don’t care. In fact, they don’t even notice. After a bombardment of sportsbook commercials over the past five years, the spots are received as merely background noise at best and an annoyance at worst. Sports fans and bettors hate sportsbook commercials almost as much as they hate the  sportsbooks themselves. The good news, and this one comes without bad news, is that those same people love gambling on sports. Even if the commercials suck and their sportsbook is as likable as their cell phone provider, or cable company, or airline – pick your poison in the medicine cabinet of lousy customer experiences – they’re still gonna bet!

The Mannings are of course required by law to appear in 75% of all commercials shown during football games, so it may take a few seconds before the viewer realizes the Kick of Destiny lead up spots are for FanDuel and not some other soulless entity intent on leveraging the boys’ genuine decency. But will the Mannings be able to save the final spot on Super Bowl Sunday? It’s been a disaster the last couple of years (but nobody noticed and if they did, they didn’t care; see above).

And speaking of not noticing, the BetMGM spot during last year’s Super Bowl was premised on not allowing Tom Brady to bet at BetMGM because he’s  “won too much already.” This is actually part of the business model at BetMGM and many other sportsbooks – win too much and you’ll be banned or severely limited. Yeah, you guessed it. Nobody noticed.

Most online sportsbook operators count on their customers to not notice stuff in order for the business to succeed. And it goes way beyond the television commercials. How long will they get away with it?