Wild Water

What is Wild Water?

One answer is that the industry is no longer being valued primarily on the promise of endless growth. The market instead wants to see profit, cash generation and manageable regulation maintained across all facets of a listed business. Ed Birkin, managing director of H2 Gambling Capital, says the longer-term decline in gambling stocks runs much deeper than just changes to earnings forecasts.

“The industry share price declines have been much more severe than the cut to earnings projections which means that, while there may be some weakening in some companies’ fundamental growth drivers, the valuations that investors are putting on them have been the main driver of share price declines – although weaker fundamentals lead to lower valuations, so the reality is that they’re completely intertwined.”

Entain’s demotion comes after another – and arguably more significant – symbolic move by Flutter Entertainment. Flutter began trading on the New York Stock Exchange in January 2024 and later moved its primary listing from London to New York.

How to play Wild Water

“They lose quicker, dry up quicker, recruitment or re-recruitment,” he says. “If the recruitment of players dries up, then what are you going to do? Definitely there can be components like that.”

For now, the growth provides room for multiple market makers. Marantelli expects margins to “stay good during the growth period” before contracting as competition intensifies. The more complex RFQ and parlay markets may offer the best protection against that compression.

The result is an emerging ecosystem that looks less like millions of customers casually trading predictions with one another and more like an outsourced sportsbook trading room. Exchanges own the platform and recruit the customers; specialist firms price the risk and provide the money needed to make those markets function.

What is Wild Water?

The approved text includes a series of restrictions on advertising for online betting and gambling:

Advertising prohibited: Direct or indirect marketing communication regarding betting on radio and television, newspapers, magazines, outdoor media, streaming services, podcasts, social networks, video platforms, apps, websites, blogs, forums, search engines and other internet environments is prohibited.

Messaging and targeted advertising: The restriction also extends to instant messaging, SMS, email, notifications, advertising automatically targeted by algorithms, telemarketing – which shows ads again to people who have already been exposed to certain content – and profiling based on user behaviour.