Shakedown Fees
The messenger with this new need, Sports Manage has heard, has become the Switzerland-based Sportradar itself. The company has proposed specific Nevada sportsbook operators about the new fee in the NBA’s directive.
Sources say Sportradar approached multiple sportsbook operators who have obtained the company’s gambling data feed called Betradar, also used it to access the NBA data feed, with the new terms before the start of the NBA playoffs.
Around the same period, Sportradar, doing the bidding of Major League Baseball, advised certain sportsbooks they will want to fork over a”royalty” of 0.25 percentage of wagers taken on MLB competitions for entry to the league’s official feed via Betradar, sources said. These discussions stay ongoing.
“What I have heard, and people are reluctant to go on record, is that the leagues are demanding that to find the official Betradar data feed, you finally have to pay a quarter percentage of handle,” said Robert Walker, Director of Sports Book Operations for Nevada-based bookmaker USBookmaking. “I have heard that the leagues, which are the NBA and MLB, want a charge for in-game wagering data, along with the existing fees”
Walker formerly ran a few of the largest sportsbooks in Nevada including those at the MGM Mirage and also for Boyd Gaming.
“My sources inform me that the demand is coming from the data provider, Betradar,” Walker explained. “I don’t know if the leagues really reached themselves out. I believe they’re strong arming Betradar, who’s coming back and saying this is what we have to get.”
The NBA, MLB and Sportradar didn’t respond to Sports Handle’s request for comment for this story.
By way of background, the NBA, in lockstep with MLB, has lobbied state and national lawmakers since January 2018 for what was first called an”ethics fee” — a fee which would call for state-licensed sportsbooks to pay pro leagues a 1 percent off-the-top cut of legal sports stakes on every respective leagues’ games. At present, the NBA and MLB are asking for 0.25 percentage and calling it a”royalty” instead or just”compensation.”
Thus far, no state has falsified the leagues’ petition. However this week,Tennessee became the first state to pass a law (Governor Bill Lee will leave it unsigned and let it become law) that includes a”data mandate” requiring, with some murky language, that to-be licensed books purchase”official league data” to electricity any in-play betting markets it may provide.
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