Benzinga - When sportsbook Mojo first launched last September with $100 million in venture capital backing, it proclaimed itself as an athlete "stock market."
In other words, users frequent the app to gamble on a player's performance, whether it be in one game, an entire season, or the trajectory of their career.
So far, Mojo has only been doing business in New Jersey, but that's about to change, CEO Vinit Bharara said Wednesday at the "Benzinga Titans: Sports Betting Summit & Awards" event.
What Happened: During the panel discussion "Building A Next Level Fan Experience" (moderated by Benzinga's Zunaid Suleman), Bharara — who co-founded Mojo with retired MLB star Alex Rodriguez — indicated that a three-state expansion is in the works.
"We will launch a gamified version, that is sort of similar to DFS (Daily Fantasy Sports), introducing a sports stock market to California, Texas and Florida in a totally lawful way," Bharara said. "That'll allow us to access probably 55, 60 percent of the population just in the next few weeks."
Bharara's overall goal with Mojo is to create something "more akin" to Robinhood Markets Inc. (NASDAQ: HOOD), a platform that simplified commission-free stock trading.
As Suleman put it: A Mojo user can bet on the career of, say, Baltimore Ravens quarterback Lamar Jackson and whether he'll emerge victorious from a Super Bowl. If he does, the user can cash out.
Bringing that added thrill to states in the form of DFS, which is legal, appears to be the next viable step all while legislators debate the legalization of sports betting.
Mojo's user base already spends an average of 75 minutes on the app, Bharara said, adding, "We got to pour the marketing gas on."
Why It Matters: The sports betting industry is at an inflection point, the other panelists explained. Gone are the days when it was a "dirty little secret" sort of thing among men.
For Jaymee Messler, founder of Gaming Society, the key to growing the industry is inclusivity.
"There's such an opportunity for women's sports," Messler said, citing the "huge percentage" of women that bet in Europe. "There's interest, there's demand... the opportunity is massive."
There is also fertile ground beyond the typical sports leagues (i.e., Major League Baseball, the National Football League, the National Basketball Associate and the National Hockey League).
NASCAR, for example, is pinning its hopes on eventually integrating sports books into racing, according to managing director Joe Solosky.
"Currently, there's no retailer sports book at a NASCAR track," he says. "Hopefully that changes in the future."
Nowadays, NASCAR fans can take part in parimutuel betting, where the odds aren’t set by a sports book — they're pooled together and vary depending on the amount of money that's wagered by players, Solosky explained.
What's Next: Sports betting companies are also going high-tech when it comes to customer acquisition, Lee Aho, the Executive Vice President at Perform[cb], says.
Perform[cb], a portfolio company of Beringer Capital, predicts a greater adoption of artificial intelligence (AI) within the space as a way to optimize advertising and attract customers.
"Brands will continue to grow their active user bases in a much smarter fashion," Aho said.
Beringer is also a majority stakeholder in Benzinga.
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