Where the punter already was

Sports media brands are where fans form their views: the racecard, the team news, the preview, the live score. Betting happens at the same moment, and media brands have long tried to earn from it.

Since Sky formed Sky Bet in 2001 they have taken four routes. Some built their own bookmaker. Some put their name on a bookmaker run by someone else. One tied its audience to a single bookmaker. Others stayed in the middle: they built betting into their own product or content and worked with several bookmakers. The Racing Post has done that since 2010, so this case study starts with it.

Twenty-five years at a glance

The Racing Post, 2010 to today

The Racing Post has published the form since 1986.¹ It introduced a paywall on its website in 2008,² so it was already charging readers for its journalism before betting arrived.

The bet came in December 2010. The paper's iPhone app, then the most popular racing app in the App Store, let readers bet with William Hill by tapping its price on the racecard. Its head of online said readers had asked for betting when the paper surveyed its app users that year.³ In 2011, the first full year, William Hill took 2.8 million bets through the Racing Post and Racing UK apps, its chief executive told investors in February 2012.⁴

The paper then widened the choice. By July 2019 readers could bet with William Hill, Ladbrokes, Coral, Paddy Power and bet365 without leaving the app,⁵ and Betfair made six by the end of that year.⁶ Today the app compares prices and place terms from seven bookmakers.⁷ A reader logs in to the bookmaker accounts they already hold, or opens a new one, and taps a price to add it to the betslip. The bet is placed with the bookmaker they choose and gets the same concessions as in that bookmaker's own app, such as Best Odds Guaranteed.⁸ Readers can check balances, deposit, withdraw and set limits without leaving the app.⁷ The Racing Post takes no bets itself.⁸

The paper does not publish what it earns from betting. A 2023 Press Gazette interview with its editor put digital at almost 60% of revenue, made up of subscriptions, advertising and affiliate activity. The paper had 15,000 online subscribers, more than 20% up on before 2020.⁹

Betting income has not stopped the paper publishing journalism that challenges bookmakers. Its tipping column, Pricewise, has long been known for moving betting markets. In 2005 William Hill's chief executive told shareholders that Pricewise had "tipped a winner for 10 weeks running" and that results "could have been better if it wasn't for him".¹⁰ In February 2024 the paper exposed an unlicensed bookmaker taking bets over WhatsApp.¹¹ The Gambling Commission's criminal investigation began with intelligence from a Racing Post investigative reporter, and in December 2025 the Commission reported that the man who said he was the bookmaker's VIP commercial manager had been given a suspended jail sentence.¹²

Staying in the middle

The Racing Post is not the only media business to earn from betting without taking bets. Action Network built a betting news and media business with several bookmaker partners, and in 2021 Better Collective paid $240m for it.^{13, 14}

The Daily Racing Form, the American racing paper, moved the same way. In June 2025 its parent, Affinity Interactive, sold DRF's racing betting platform, DRF Bets, to 1/ST. It said DRF would expand into affiliate partnerships and work with a broader range of racetracks, betting platforms and bookmakers "as an independent and innovative media and data company".¹⁵

Owning the bookmaker

Sky formed Sky Bet in 2001. By the year to June 2014 the business had net revenue of £182m and operating profit of £50m. That December Sky agreed to sell a controlling stake to CVC at a value of £800m, keeping about 20%, and said the sale would let it focus on pay TV.¹⁶ In 2018 The Stars Group agreed to buy the whole business for $4.7bn.¹⁷

theScore, a Canadian sports media app, took the same route in America. In the year to August 2019, when it was still a media business, its revenue was C$31.1m.¹⁸ It had 3.6 million app users a month. Its losses were rising as it spent on building a betting business, and its bookmaker, theScore Bet, was taking bets in New Jersey.¹⁹ In August 2021 Penn agreed to pay about $2bn for the company. The two companies said, citing theScore's own data, that bettors who also used its media app staked 88% more than those who didn't, placed three times as many bets and had 91% higher retention after 30 days.²⁰ The figures show a link, and do not prove that the media app caused the difference. When Penn agreed in November 2025 to end its deal with ESPN, it said it would rebrand its American bookmaker as theScore Bet.²¹

The same route failed for others. Fubo, the live TV streaming service, launched its own bookmaker in Iowa in November 2021 and expected the link with live TV to improve engagement and retention.²² It closed in October 2022, when Fubo's board decided not to go on without a strategic partner.²³ The Daily Racing Form opened a bookmaker in Iowa in January 2022,²⁴ which has since closed.²⁵

Owning a bookmaker means competing with the biggest betting groups on product, prices, trading and service. Sky Bet and theScore both became businesses worth billions, and both were bought by betting groups.

Lending the name

In this route a media brand put its name on a bookmaker run by a betting company.

In Britain, Tabcorp launched Sun Bets with News UK in August 2016 on a deal meant to run for ten years. It lost more than AU$135m in less than two years, and in July 2018 Tabcorp agreed to pay News UK about AU$71m to end it.²⁶

In America, Fox and The Stars Group launched Fox Bet in 2019, and it closed in 2023.²⁷ Penn paid $163m in January 2020 for 36% of Barstool Sports and launched its bookmaker under the Barstool name that September.²⁸ In August 2023 Penn handed the media company back to its founder for $1, subject to non-compete terms and keeping the right to half of any future sale, so that it could rename its bookmaker ESPN Bet.²⁹ ESPN Bet replaced the Barstool app in November 2023.³⁰ Penn agreed to pay ESPN $150m a year in cash, plus warrants, over an initial ten years, and ESPN said it sent more than 2.9 million new users to Penn. The deal ended in December 2025, two years in.²¹

Each of these media brands had a big audience and a famous name. In each case the betting product, prices and service belonged to someone else, and none of the four bookmakers still carries the media brand's name.

Tying the audience to one bookmaker

Gannett, the publisher of USA Today, chose a single partner. In 2021 it made Tipico its exclusive betting partner in a five-year deal reported at $100m, $90m of it in advertising that Tipico would buy from Gannett. Gannett described its audience as more than 46 million sports fans. Tipico was due to be live in two states that autumn.³¹

In 2022 Gannett's chief executive said on an earnings call that "their expansion has been slower than anticipated, and they still operate in only two states". The exclusivity was removed that year. Free to work with other bookmakers, Gannett announced a multi-year deal with Gambling.com Group in February 2023 and later said the partnership was "already pacing ahead of expectations in its first year". In March 2023 Gannett and Tipico ended their deal three years early.³² Tipico left the American market in 2024.³³

What the record shows

The routes differ in three ways.

How long they lasted. Sun Bets ran from 2016 to 2018, Fox Bet from 2019 to 2023, Barstool's bookmaker from 2020 to 2023 and ESPN Bet from 2023 to 2025. Gannett's five-year deal ended three years early. Betting in the Racing Post app has run since 2010.

Who kept the value. Sky and theScore created real value by building bookmakers. To do it they had to compete as bookmakers, and both businesses were bought by betting groups. The Racing Post and Action Network earned from betting without taking bets themselves.

How much choice fans had. Gannett offered what it called more than 46 million sports fans one bookmaker, live in two states. The Racing Post went from one bookmaker to seven, and each bet goes to the reader's own account with the bookmaker they choose.

The comparison has limits. The Racing Post does not publish its betting income, so its numbers cannot be set against Sky's or theScore's. Racing is more closely tied to betting than most sports. The pattern holds across both countries all the same.

What it means for media brands

Media brands can earn real money from betting. Sky, theScore, Action Network and the Racing Post each found a way to do it. The route still running after fifteen years builds betting into a product fans already use and lets a choice of licensed bookmakers take the bets.

Advertising pays a media brand for attention. Betting partners pay for customers and the betting they do. theScore shows the scale: a media business with revenue of C$31.1m a year became, once betting was built in, a business Penn agreed to buy for about $2bn, a price that included its bookmaker. How much any media brand earns from betting depends on the deal, the audience and how often fans come back.

This route plays to what a media brand already has: the audience, the moment a fan forms a view and journalism people will pay for. It leaves prices, money and risk with licensed bookmakers. And it avoids the two weaknesses the failures share: a name lent to a product the media brand does not control, and an audience that only one bookmaker can serve.

The punter was already there. That is where betting belongs.

About the figures: figures are as published by each source on the date shown. Company figures describe each company's own customers and deals. C$ is Canadian dollars and AU$ is Australian dollars. 18+. Free support is available 24 hours a day from the National Gambling Helpline on 0808 8020 133.

Keith O'Loughlin is CEO of Funteron and former CEO of OpenBet. He chairs Christchurch Casino in New Zealand.