High Court Ruling Easing State Gambling Laws May Benefit ISPs, With FCC Help, Analysts Say
The Supreme Court's overturning federal limits on some state gambling laws may help ISPs in the long run, assisted by the FCC's net neutrality rollback, said New Street Research analysts, referring to Monday's 6-3 decision in Murphy v. NCAA, No.…
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16-476. "The end game of all manner of gambling, particularly sports gambling, eventually opens the door for ISPs to enjoy some, if not a large portion, of the potential profits, without significant new costs," they wrote investors Tuesday, acknowledging further steps are needed and "potentially several years before those profits are realized." The analysts expect real-time online betting integrated with sports watching "will be a huge business," including "micro-betting" during a game that could require "high reliability, low latency, and huge backend computing power." ISP "leverage" to "offer services to platforms wishing to facilitate such gambling and to customers wishing to have the best performing platforms is greater than in the past due to the elimination of net neutrality protections," they wrote. "The ability of ISPs to monetize the gambling is even greater when the entities are vertically integrated ISPs and content distribution companies with sports programming." They said states must still pass new gambling laws and there must be underwriting of "the gambling risk of paying off more than the platform takes in," which will be a challenge in a real-time online setting.