EndGame: Missouri Turns Out, Thanksgiving Bonanza

The U.S. sports betting world moves quickly and unpredictably in 2025. In order to properly take stock of it all, we offer InGame’s “EndGame,” an end-of-week compilation of the top storylines, some overlooked items, and all the other news bits from this past week that we found interesting.

Missouri’s first 24 hours: 2.6+ million checks

GeoComply recorded more than 2.6 million geolocation checks in Missouri in the first 24 hours after launch just past midnight Monday morning. According to the company, there were more than 250,000 active accounts in the state, and 188,000 of those were created between Nov. 17-30.

The majority of activity, as expected, was in St. Louis and Kansas City, the state’s two biggest cities, though GeoComply’s map shows significant activity in Columbia, where the University of Missouri is located, and Springfield, the third-biggest city in the state.

The Missouri launch was the first in the United States since North Carolina went live in March 2024. No U.S. jurisdiction legalized digital sports betting or iCasino in 2025.

Jill R. Dorson

Massachusetts fines Fanatics $20,000

The Massachusetts Gaming Commission on Thursday fined Fanatics Sports $20,000 for allowing 83 bets totalling $3,325 on a college football game between Sept. 15-20, 2024. Betting on a college team based in Massachusetts is not legal unless it is participating in a tournament. Losing bets were voided, winning bets were paid out, and parlay legs involving the game were removed and parlays were settled without it.

Several commissioners voiced concern about the amount of the fine and thought it should be higher. Commissioner Eileen O’Brien said, “For the third offense, I would have gone harsher … Three times in a couple of years with a smack on the wrist, I just think there needs to me more done.”

The Investigation Enforcement Bureau said during its presentation that the employee who made the error no longer works for Fanatics. While commissioners applauded the change, they asked for follow up on how Fanatics would deal with similar issues in the future.

Jill R. Dorson

NGCB recommends blackballing Nix

Wayne Nix, a Southern California illegal bookmaker who laundered money in Las Vegas casinos, is on the Nevada Gaming Control Board’s hit list. The board Wednesday recommended Nix be added to the state’s “black book,” which is a list of people banned from state casinos.

Nix, who in 2022 pled guilty to conspiracy to operate an illegal bookmaking business and tax fraud, awaits sentencing. Among the casinos at which Nix laundered money was the MGM Grand, where convicted felon and then-casino president Scott Sibella was aware of Nix’s actions.

In court last year, Sibella said that he was knew money was being laundered, but looked the other way. Sibella, the first defendant in the Southern California illegal bookmaking scandal to be sentenced, was fined $9,500 and served one year of probation.

The NGCB will consider banning another illegal bookmaker — Matthew Bowyer, who is serving a year-long sentence at Lompoc Prison. Bowyer laundered money at multiple casinos, including Resorts World — where Sibella was president at the time. The NGCB has since sanctioned Resorts World.

Jill R. Dorson

Cowboys-Chiefs a betting smorgasbord?

The Athletic reported that a record 57.2 million watched the Dallas Cowboys’ 31-28 Thanksgiving Day win over Kansas City on CBS, obliterating the previous regular-season record of 42 million from the 2022 Dallas-New York Giants Thanksgiving game.

The impact on sports betting, theoretically, had to be massive, although the disparate manner in which states and tribal gambling companies collate and release data makes tabulating a true figure impossible.

But consider: An October Pew Research Center study claimed that 22% of Americans have placed a sports bet in 2025. While there is no way to prove that 22% had any interest in the Cowboys, Chiefs, or the NFL in general (but they probably did), it can still be reasonably surmised that at 4:30 p.m. ET on Thanksgiving, many of them were in a post-feast prostration, with a smartphone bearing wagering apps close at hand.

If so, that’s 12.5 million bettors thinking about parlays and pie.

ARK hedging DraftKings exposure with Kalshi bet?

Among the backers in Kalshi’s latest $1 billion funding round announced Monday is ARK Invest, the tech-focused fund manager led by Cathie Wood.

DraftKings has been one of ARK’s biggest holdings since it first bought into the operator in 2021. In October, ARK bought half a million more DraftKings shares as its price plummeted, partly due to increased fears of prediction markets eating into its business.

Now holding shares in Kalshi, too, ARK may come out a winner whether or not prediction markets unseat sportsbooks. Kalshi did not reveal how large ARK’s stake would be.

Daniel O’Boyle

‘Nigerian Nightmare’ of a celebrity bet

Christian Okoye, a briefly tremendously fun fullback for a Chiefs team that was decades from being the same, made the ceremonial first bet for Caesars Sportsbook at Harrah’s Kansas City on Monday. It was not tremendous but played well in Missouri: $100 on his former team to win the Super Bowl.

The Chiefs are 6-6 and seeded 10th in the AFC – seven reach the playoffs – with a whole bunch of teams they’ve lost to ahead of them.

Bettman: Prediction market deal an integrity hedge

NHL commissioner Gary Bettman told CNBC that the league’s multi-year “official prediction market” deals with Kalshi and Polymarket, announced on Oct. 22, provide the power to “take down any contracts that we don’t think are appropriate.”

The NHL has remained comparatively untainted by gambling scandal while the NBA and Major League Baseball are mired in performance-manipulation controversy.

“I don’t believe our game is susceptible in the way that some others might be … You can’t really get away with that kind of cheating anymore,” Bettman added, as if asking for trouble.

The NHL’s lone public gambling controversy was Ottawa’s Shane Pinto incurring a 41-game suspension for proxy betting, which is against league rules.

Kalshi offers single-game and end-of-season awards markets for the NHL, not the type of parlays it has posted for the NFL and NBA.

ESPN keeps presence in the betting business

ESPN Bet is no more, but ESPN is maintaining its sports betting staff after announcing an exclusive “multi-year extension” with analyst Pamela Maldonado, according to a Tuesday release.

Maldonado was hired in August in a “non-exclusive” agreement.

Said Maldonado: “I’m grateful to keep building with ESPN. This is a place that values preparation and perspective, and that’s the work that drives me. I’m proud of what we’ve built so far and motivated to keep bringing clarity and real insights to the sports betting space.”

Kalshi and the SEC

Not the Securities Exchange Commission. The Southeastern Conference. The “truth engine” wasn’t sure that Alex Golesh would be the next Auburn head coach until about five seconds before it happened. The site was all over DJ Durkin and Jon Sumrall before Golesh was announced on Nov. 30.

Plus500 to clear FanDuel Predicts trades

Trading platform Plus500 will act as the designated clearing organization (DCO) for FanDuel’s upcoming prediction markets launch, the company announced Monday.

FanDuel Predicts is expected to launch this month, with commodities giant CME acting as the designated contract market. A DCO handles the actual buying and selling of contracts, and fills out paperwork and moves money associated with those contracts.

Daniel O’Boyle

HG Vora hits back at Penn Board report

Activist investor HG Vora has hit out at a “special litigation committee” report that argued theScore Bet owner Penn Entertainment acted in “good faith” in shrinking the size of its board from nine members to eight. The move presented HG Vora from electing a third candidate.

The report was submitted to the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania last week. HG Vora filed a response to the court, arguing the committee “did not conduct a reasonable investigation and lacked a rational basis for its decision.” It said the report was “biased” and failed to identify an “objective factual basis” for the claim that electing HG Vora’s preferred candidate, William Clifford, to the board would create a regulatory risk for the operator.

Daniel O’Boyle

Kalshi, Solana launch ‘tokenized predictions’

Kalshi has launched “tokenized predictions” on the Solana blockchain, via crypto exchange Jupiter, as it aims to integrate more with the world of cryptocurrency.

Traders on Jupiter will be able to buy “tokens” recorded on the blockchain that correspond to a “yes” or “no” outcome on a Kalshi contract, which then pay out in cryptocurrency based on the result of the contract.

Based on the small print on Jupiter’s website, Jupiter then appears to buy and sell the actual cash contracts itself on Kalshi in order to pay out winners.

Daniel O’Boyle

Everybody wins when wonks fight about prediction markets online

Just joshin’

Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong said at the Dealbook Summit on Wednesday that he was just having some fun when he concluded a Q3 earnings call in late October by intentionally prattling off several words that were being used in mention markets on Kalshi and Polymarket.

Armstrong’s little gag moved $84,000 around the markets – a pittance for a guy who’s worth $11.4 billion – but it focused serious scrutiny on how prediction markets can be manipulated.

“Well, I didn’t trade on it, of course,” he quipped.

Check this out

The United States sports betting industry has both learned lessons and ignored warnings from its counterparts in Europe, particularly the United Kingdom. The Guardian this week broke a massive corruption story, a tale of sports betting accounts of losing bettors being bought and sold by high-dollar whales to keep gambling companies from limiting or shutting them down.

It is fascinating and, for regulators, terrifying at the same time.

Odds and ends

The Indiana Gaming Commission this week updated its allowable wagering markets to include winter baseball leagues in Cuba, Venezuela, Mexico and the Dominican Republic. The Venezuelan and Dominican leagues earlier this fall refused to allow now-indicted former Cleveland pitchers Emmanuel Clase and Luis Ortiz to play there this offseason. Travel restrictions imposed by the courts would have prevented that, anyway.
The American Gaming Association (AGA) on Thursday announced the Applied Research Experience Internship, which offers graduate students the opportunity to conduct funded research focused on the U.S. gaming industry.
The Arizona Department of Gaming on Monday released its new “Too Young to Bet AZ” campaign, a “youth-focused public awareness initiative to prevent underage gambling,” in partnership with the National Council on Problem Gambling.
The CEO of a western Ontario hospital wrote a letter in support of a proposed nationwide sports betting ad ban, saying that the number of patients his hospital treats for “problem gambling and digital dependency” has doubled in the last five years, CBC reported Monday. Digital sports betting and online gambling went live in Ontario in April 2022.
Sports prediction market Novig hit headlines after a bettor exploited a flaw in NHL SGP calculations, winning over $130k before the platform retroactively voided the bets and slapped on a negative balance. The move sparked outrage on X and Novig reversed course, paying out the wagers.
In the same week it partnered with CNN, Kalshi announced an “exclusive” partnership with CNBC. Exclusive?
CBS’ 60 Minutes devoted an episode last Sunday to Polymarket as the prediction market prepares its U.S. launch. The episode featured interviews with Polymarket founder Shayne Coplan and trader “Domer.”
After raising $1 billion, Kalshi appears to be preparing a minor hiring spree. It has listed a number of new jobs in finance and marketing, including a linear/streaming head who will take charge of the prediction market’s television advertising strategy.