Roundhill Investments has successfully followed through on its plans to introduce a new exchange-traded fund (ETF) designed to capture the substantial growth of two nascent markets. This past March, the investment firm announced that it was putting together a package that would allow it to become the first company to launch a sports gambling and iGaming ETF, and it hasn’t waste any time fulfilling its mission. The new Roundhill Sports Betting & iGaming ETF, under the ticker BETZ on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE), is now live and ready for action.
Timing can often play a significant role in the success of any business endeavor, and the launch of this new ETF now is going to result in Roundhill experiencing plenty of good times ahead. As the sports world starts to get back on its feet after the coronavirus debacle, sports gambling is going to be taken to an entirely new level. More states in the US are going to be pushing for legalized sports wagers, ready to recover the money they lost as their domestic operations were closed. Sportsbooks are going to be competing more to attract customers, which is going to fuel the number of wagers seen and lead to the ETF finding more support from investors. iGaming, while limited in availability in the US, has already picked up, thanks to COVID-19, and will also gain favor among lawmakers for the same reasons they want legalized sports gambling.
Roundhill’s new product covers 30 companies in the sports gambling and iGaming space. A little more than 40% are sportsbook operators, just over 25% make up technology companies serving the industry, 16.3% offer iGaming solutions and another 17% is comprised of conventional casino operators. The company explains its ETF as including “(i) companies that operate in-person and/or online sports books (ii) companies that operate online/internet gambling platforms and (iii) companies that provide infrastructure or technology to such companies in (i) or (ii).”
Among the entities covered by the fund is a name that is guaranteed to create a flurry of activity around the investment vehicle. Roundhill has essentially built the fund on top of DraftKings, which holds the largest stake – around 7.02% – of the fund, and the sports gambling giant’s recent launch on the NASDAQ exchange has seen nothing but massive success since it went live. Right after DraftKings is FanDuel, with the Flutter Entertainment-owned company providing 6.53% of the entire portfolio.
Roundhill didn’t stop there, though, and also brought GAN into the mix. Like DraftKings, the iGaming-centered company has seen success since launching its initial public offering on NASDAQ (although it is currently flat), and will prove to be a strong asset to have in the fund. In addition, the firm has included casino operators like Penn National Gaming and Eldorado Resorts, among others, which are almost guaranteed to see huge rebounds after the coronavirus drama dies down. As casinos across the US are now starting to reopen their doors, with Vegas having gone live yesterday, casino stocks are going to shoot up, and Roundhill’s ETF will ride the wave with them.
