Betr has received a temporary vendor license to offer online sports betting in Indiana.
The sportsbook becomes the mobile partner of Caesars Southern Indiana in Elizabeth. The gaming arm of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians, EBCI Holdings, owns the casino.
Betr Sportsbook is Indiana’s 14th sportsbook. The market will soon drop to 13, as Unibet Sportsbook plans to exit Indiana in the next few months.
Indiana just the third state Betr is currently operating in
Indiana sports betting is nearing its five-year anniversary. It became legal in May 2019, with the first retail bet made in September of that year and the first online wager made a month later. Statewide handle reached nearly $2 billion in 2023.
Betr’s license from the Indiana Gaming Commission comes a little over a year after the sportsbook and EBCI Holdings announced an equity-based deal that would help Betr enter the Indiana market. The agreement made EBCI Holdings one of Betr’s largest shareholders.
Founded in 2022, Betr’s sportsbook is available in two other states, Virginia and Ohio. Previously, the sportsbook that specializes in micro-betting also operated in Massachusetts. It exited the New England state this month after just 10 months in operation.
After going live in Massachusetts last April with a temporary license that cost $1 million, Betr could not gain traction in the state. It could only secure a tiny fraction of the online sports betting market compared to industry leaders DraftKings and FanDuel. In fact, Betr was dead last among the 10 sportsbooks in the state, with less than 0.1% of the market share.
However, the company does have plans to expand to at least a half dozen other states in 2024, including Pennsylvania, Colorado, Maryland and Kentucky. The sportsbook’s entry into Kentucky will also be a partnership with EBCI Holdings.
Fierce competition for Betr in Indiana
Last month, retail and online sportsbooks in Indiana took in more than $480.5 million in bets. It was a dip of $22 million from December 2023, which had the second-highest monthly handle ever in the state. Betr will have an uphill battle as DraftKings and FanDuel dominate the market in the Hoosier State. Together, they garnered over 70% of the total handle in January.
Created by celebrity social media influencer/boxer Jake Paul and Simplebet co-founder Joey Levy, Betr offers customers a chance to place wagers on in-game, play-by-play outcomes. Bets can be made on anything from shot attempts in basketball to the type of pitch in baseball.
The sportsbook accepts traditional types of wagers, including futures, props and a range of parlay options, as well.
Betr also operates Betr Picks, a real-money fantasy sports platform available in 24 states (not in Indiana).
