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“People will lose money faster on exchanges for lots of reasons,” Marantelli says. “It inherently increases spend, volatility, lots of things. And you’re playing against a sharper audience than you’re playing against at the DraftKings sportsbook.”
He compares the effect with sportsbook cash-out features, which gave customers more apparent control over their bets but may also have encouraged greater spending. The crucial difference is that an exchange customer can be facing a specialist whose entire business is identifying inaccurately priced contracts.
Kendrick sees a warning in the history of betting exchanges. In their early growth phase, there was sufficient retail liquidity for numerous market makers to profit. As that retail pool weakened, the sharper firms increasingly found themselves trading against one another.
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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.
Prediction market operators are on legal losing streaks, confirming that Beynon is onto something when he says the regulatory environment is the biggest risk facing the industry.
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Asked by Hall on how Texas should proceed moving forward, York advised that the state should seek an order that would require prediction markets to geofence their platforms from operating statewide. York also prefers the pursuit of litigation against prediction markets in state court, rather than the federal circuit, where state attorney generals have been less successful.
“Prediction markets think they can mess with Texas,” York said. “I hope you prove them wrong.”
In response, DeNault noted that prediction markets regulated on the federal level by the CFTC offer a “safer alternative” than many offshore operators that lack the requisite consumer protections.