Chris Grove

Gambling industry entrepreneur, investor, advisor. GP at Acies Investments, Operating Advisor at Arctos Sports Partners, Partner Emeritus at Eilers & Krejcik.

[Nick Devor @nickdevor_]

SCOOP: Before launching its digital rips product, PrizePicks sent a briefing to every state attorney general and met with gambling regulators to share what they were planning.

It was a proactive move to assuage concerns that digital rips could be considered gambling, and may have helped lay the groundwork for broader gambling industry adoption of digital rips.

While digital rips seem to meet the standard definition of gambling—the customer pays for a random chance to win a prize of monetary value—PrizePicks' view is that they are simply digitizing the age-old practice of opening a pack of physical trading cards, which isn't considered gambling under the law.

“This is much more like an e-commerce transaction than it is a form of gambling,” PrizePicks chief legal officer Jason Barclay tells me.

Still, Barclay says “we recognize that anything in the sports entertainment space can be subject to abuse, can be subject to addiction.”

About half of Wednesday’s press release announcing PrizePicks Packs is dedicated to consumer protection measures that come with the product: Customers need to be 18 years old and the app has built in deposit limits. Users have the option to cut themselves off, a casino-industry practice known as self-exclusion.

Gambling or not, the trading card market has certainly become speculative.

An index of trading card values tracked by Card Ladder is outpacing the S&P 500. Trading card manufacturers promote buying card packs in search of rare cards as if they were jackpot lottery tickets.

Trying to win a rare trading card by spending $2,500 on a fantasy-sports app might seem strange to some. But as an @EilersKrejcik report points out, “A generation raised on Pokémon, skins and digital goods already assigns real value to noncash assets. A $1,000 card can be a grail, a status object and an asset at once; for the right consumer, the chance to acquire it can be more compelling than an equivalent cash payout.”

(video via @AldrinResearch)

[Nick Devor @nickdevor_]

NEW: All NBA players and team personnel will be required to attend an in-person training session on the league's sports betting rules, according to a memo the NBA sent to team leadership on Friday.
https://t.co/27bcT93LHY

[Howard Stutz @howardstutz]

Interesting. @AaronDFordNV for Governor sent an email pitch citing how prediction markets are ranking the race.
- Prediction markets are illegal in Nevada
- The AG's office is representing the @NevadaGCB in the lawsuits banning companies such as @Kalshi
Awkward.
@TheNVIndy

[Casino Reports @casino_reports]

BetMGM Sportsbook is available in 25 jurisdictions, whereas BetMGM Casino operates in only 4. But as CEO Adam Greenblatt indicated on the company's Q3 earnings call, quality > quantity when it comes to customers — and iGaming is where the quality (in other words, the money) is.

[Chris Grove @OPReport]

@JonAguiar People are saying you’re broke

[Kurt Badenhausen @kbadenhausen]

Today marks the 4th anniversary of the current bull market, with the S&P 500 up 118% during that time. Here is how stocks stack up against men's U.S. sports league average gains, via @Sportico.

🏒 NHL: 141%
🏈 NFL: 126%
🏀 NBA: 121%
📈 S&P: 118%
⚾️ MLB: 37%
⚽️ MLS: 31%

[Chris Grove @OPReport]

@nickdevor_ Congrats Nick - well deserved

[InGame @InGameHQ]

The Ohio Casino Control Commission (OCCC) sent out 10 cease-and-desist letters Friday to prediction markets offering sports event contracts in the state.

Polymarket, Robinhood, and Underdog are among recipients after Sixth Circuit ruled that sports event contracts fall under state gambling law.

[Max Abelson @maxabelson]

NEW: The biggest trading firm is so secretive it has no CEO or board of directors. Jane Street’s dominance means its leaders matter across the world, so we spent months trying to figure out who’s who. Here’s a gift link. Please read and share it

https://t.co/nQoLAoYy6D

[Geoff Zochodne @GeoffZochodne]

A dispatch from myself and @butlerbetstrade from G2E, which might be the biggest prediction market conference yet. It's just a prediction market conference that doesn't like them all that much:

https://t.co/5hnvcKJgtc

@Covers

[Dan Bernstein @dan_bernstein_]

NEW: How insiders view Robinhood's prediction market deal with Crypto(.)com, OG and OG's exchange subsidiary—from the motivations to what it means for the industry.

Insights from Robinhood, Crypto(.)com, Rothera, Susquehanna and more.

https://t.co/KLuBG52R8G

[Marshall Cohen @MarshallCohen]

JUST IN: Instead of appealing to SCOTUS, @Kalshi has asked the full Ninth Circuit to review ("en banc") its case against Nevada. This comes after Kalshi lost with the appeals panel, which ruled 3-0 that Nevada can regulate the prediction site like gambling.

[The Wall Street Journal @WSJ]

Exclusive: Robinhood Markets agreed to add https://t.co/xaziY0GQ0c’s yes-or-no contracts to its trading platform and take minority stakes in the digital-currency exchange and its prediction-markets business https://t.co/91SlKIQPAD

[Chris Grove @OPReport]

@JonAguiar Good post, would read again

[Chris Grove @OPReport]

Read the whole story -->
https://t.co/nV2E36q0A0

[Chris Grove @OPReport]

From the @nytimes latest on prediction markets:

"Mr. Trump’s tone was friendly, the people said. But his comments, which have not been previously reported, dovetailed with a message his father’s administration has sent to state leaders: Back off."

Gift link to story 👇

[InGame @InGameHQ]

Read our full analysis of the decision and what it means here: https://t.co/nUxL6c16kj

[Howard Stutz @howardstutz]

Updated with comments from @NevadaGCB @Kalshi & @JosephMLombardo
9th Circuit allows Nevada to ban Kalshi and other prediction markets.
It disagreed "with Kalshi's overly broad reading" that the CEA allows it to offer sports event contracts.
@TheNVIndy
https://t.co/ZNuBffl6qi

[Dan Bernstein @dan_bernstein_]

The Coalition for Prediction Markets has enlisted a Rob Bonta-connected lobbyist in California, part of its first set of financial disclosures

https://t.co/2FemY2bgyY

[Patrick OShaughnessy @patrick_oshag]

My conversation with @benthompson. Ben has been writing Stratechery for over a decade and remains one of my favorite business thinkers.

We covered a lot. Every important company in the industry and the forces acting on all of them.

- Why he thinks it would be problematic for the US to win the AI race
- Will we run out of money to fund AI
- Google becoming Berkshire Hathaway
- Why ads are amazing
- TSMC, Intel, and Samsung
- Nvidia's invisible price cuts + biggest competitors
- Microsoft, Amazon, Apple, and Meta

I love talking to Ben about everything happening in markets and technology. Enjoy!

TIMESTAMPS
0:00 Intro
0:59 America and the AI Race
8:26 AI’s Funding Problem
15:31 AI’s Capabilities and Limits
20:30 Aggregation Theory, AI, and Ads
31:10 Compute, TSMC, and Intel
47:31 Amazon and Apple’s AI Moats
54:43 The Frontier AI Players
74:07 Nvidia and Commoditized Intelligence
82:52 What Survives an AI Bubble?