I don’t think the conversion rate is likely to be the same. High earning poker players are to some extent mini-celebrities and seem to have strong image consciousness and network frequently with others. By contrast, high earning DFS players seem to be private people with no public image, working alone or in small teams and with limited contact with wider world. I think marketing to those people would be significantly harder than to poker “stars”.
The New York declaration is a significant risk factor for the whole DFS sector. There is some degree of likelyhood that this declaration will lead to other states following suit, while the poker market is global the DFS market is obviously highly US based and there seems to be a significant risk of it being outlawed—or atleast outlawed within a significant number of US states. You seem to understate the size of this risk.
Extremely useful comment Alasdair. It’d be helpful to see a back of the envelope estimate of projected money moved from targeting a new niche (e.g. one of DFS/pro video gamers/finance professionals). This would highlight the relevant factors and potential failure points. If REG have developed such estimates internally it could be cool to share them.
That’s a good point. It’s hard to predict how important of a factor that would be, but it’s plausible that it could make raising money among DFS players substantially harder.
Do you believe the recent New York declaration reduces the expected size of the DFS market by more than 20%? 20% seems reasonable to me.
I don’t know about whether the NY declaration reduces the market by that amount itself. I more see it as an indication of the serious challenges and uncertainties that the DFS market faces in the US.
It is clearly a live issue and one clouded with a great deal of legal uncertainty, which I think would benefit from a closer cost/benefit analysis if REG wanted to target this market seriously.
Sorry that’s not what I meant to imply, I was saying that figuring out how much good REG is likely to do takes a lot of work and I still have a lot of unanswered questions, and I’m tempted to quit school/work and investigate charities full time.
I think that the recent issues surrounding DFS are significant. Luckily, not a huge amount of time has gone into networking and other work in DFS yet.
I’m hopeful that we can explore our personal connections further in this area, and get a better idea of the next things to do without investing a lot of time.
I’m more excited about our work that just started in trading and finance. This is an area with an enormous number of people with a lot of resources.
The analysis of the DFS market seems off to me
I don’t think the conversion rate is likely to be the same. High earning poker players are to some extent mini-celebrities and seem to have strong image consciousness and network frequently with others. By contrast, high earning DFS players seem to be private people with no public image, working alone or in small teams and with limited contact with wider world. I think marketing to those people would be significantly harder than to poker “stars”.
The New York declaration is a significant risk factor for the whole DFS sector. There is some degree of likelyhood that this declaration will lead to other states following suit, while the poker market is global the DFS market is obviously highly US based and there seems to be a significant risk of it being outlawed—or atleast outlawed within a significant number of US states. You seem to understate the size of this risk.
Extremely useful comment Alasdair. It’d be helpful to see a back of the envelope estimate of projected money moved from targeting a new niche (e.g. one of DFS/pro video gamers/finance professionals). This would highlight the relevant factors and potential failure points. If REG have developed such estimates internally it could be cool to share them.
Perhaps http://www.getguesstimate.com/ would be well suited for this, though I’m not sure.
That’s a good point. It’s hard to predict how important of a factor that would be, but it’s plausible that it could make raising money among DFS players substantially harder.
Do you believe the recent New York declaration reduces the expected size of the DFS market by more than 20%? 20% seems reasonable to me.
I don’t know about whether the NY declaration reduces the market by that amount itself. I more see it as an indication of the serious challenges and uncertainties that the DFS market faces in the US.
For example, one DFS operator has ceased US operations in all but 4 states where DFS has explicit state laws allowing it: http://www.legalsportsreport.com/5389/starsdraft-cuts-off-46-states-from-dfs/ (http://www.legalsportsreport.com/category/legal/ which i found on google has a lot more in depth look at the battles going on all across US on this)
It is clearly a live issue and one clouded with a great deal of legal uncertainty, which I think would benefit from a closer cost/benefit analysis if REG wanted to target this market seriously.
I agree. There are still a lot of unanswered questions. I can certainly see why Holden and Elie quit their jobs to work on this full time.
Does REG not have any full time employees? I am very impressed in their progress if that is the case as I presumed they did!
Sorry that’s not what I meant to imply, I was saying that figuring out how much good REG is likely to do takes a lot of work and I still have a lot of unanswered questions, and I’m tempted to quit school/work and investigate charities full time.
I think that the recent issues surrounding DFS are significant. Luckily, not a huge amount of time has gone into networking and other work in DFS yet. I’m hopeful that we can explore our personal connections further in this area, and get a better idea of the next things to do without investing a lot of time.
I’m more excited about our work that just started in trading and finance. This is an area with an enormous number of people with a lot of resources.