Bet the Process - Jeffrey Benson

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hagrinBPR Review Date: 2024-09-14 07:27:15
Rating: 6.50

Notes:
Bias - Jeff is one of the best on the operator side IMO. Super well spoken, walks the line expertly between still maintaining a personality and an opinion and not reflecting poorly on his employer. Obviously a huge fan of Circa, their customer service and their approaching to operating.

1:20 - Due to realignment, is it harder or easier to go undefeated in college? "Much harder, its more games." Lol. What follows is 8 minutes of Rufus and Jeff first trying to guess what the other person would guess and then some live math which goes awry for Jeff.

9:35 - Jeff Benson Starts: Circa Champions Dinner talk, "blue blazers" made by Derek's personal tailor. No rake/contest fee for the Circa contests (the GOATs unlike another sportsbook). 14:20 - Nice fun shot at GRP not being in the Millions contest, too much eating out! Overlay + No fee - Seen as a marketing expense, overlay every year, goal to get "people on property", gamble at table, meals in restaurants. 16:45 - "Derek's tagline is 'We built a sportsbook so big we had to build a casino around it". "Between Stadium Swim and 3 Story Sportsbook, best viewing experience". 19:10 - "The price is the promo" although mentioned the casual is not price inelastic when it comes to sports yet. Mentions with consolidation coming trying to not overspend now, trying to build more tech in-house. (Sounds like they plan on trying to pick up properties / IP for pennies later and be liquid enough to capitalize on those opportunities.)

Bunch of DK surcharge talk & the perception of the price and cost to the consumer. Tails into regulation increasing the costs and it's the very same story you hear on almost every business of betting like pods. 25:15 - How has it been working w/regulators? Answer as expected - bunch of regulators in high positions that don't know anything about betting or understanding the entire market. Mentions that the Johntay Porter situation was an example of the industry getting it right vs removing under props, etc which was a short sighted regulator decision. 28:55 - "Regulators should get involved when incentives are misaligned." - Rufus. 33:40 - "Happening more because of legalized environment or because more is getting exposed?" "Little bit of both." Rufus being up the "levering up" nature of the SGP which is a new, obvious attack vector.

35:30 - Future of Booking: Massive consolidation, Big 4 will be okay (FD, DK, MGM, Caesars) and then who fights for those last spots. Possibly smaller amount of lines (uses Colorado prop measure). Funnel people to iGaming. Circa catering to a subsection of bettors that are maybe disrespected by other larger books. Circa will continue to lead on low hold, high volume approach. 40:20 - PPH Discussion: "Credit is king." Says for the most part, offshores treat players much better than onshores. Some talk about how Jeff would better the onshore experience which boils down to customer service and "some of their management teams at the highest levels aren't interested in the bettors".

51:40 Top 5 Cville - Diggs, Shipper, BrettFavre444, Seth Burn, 5th spot open. (Diggs the 1 seed considering he was on the Circa Twitter feed not a shockSTUN. Still on the Twitter feed?).

1:01:45 - Funny AbnormallyDistributed story. AD psyops putting Rufus in a pretzel.