Activist investor punts daily fantasy sports as the next big wave

Jason Ader, the activist investor and founder of SpringOwl Asset Management who has done more than most to shake up the directorates of major online gambling companies like IGT and Bwin.Party (see previous reports) believes daily fantasy sports is the next big wave in gambling.

Giving his views on the CNBC television show “Fast Money” this week, Ader went so far as to opine that DFS has the potential to become the most popular way for Americans to gamble in the future.

“The business has the potential to be as big as Macau over time,” he said, pointing out that the millennial demographic in general dislikes the traditional gambling experience, instead preferring the online and mobile interactive excitement provided by DFS operators such as market leaders DraftKings and FanDuel.

This group is also spending more freely on ancillary entertainment such as dining, shows and clubbing, than they spend on casino games, he said.

Commenting on the dramatic slowdown in the Macau gaming market, Ader said that governments come and go, and policies wax and wane. And, he pointed out, Macau remained the only gambling haven right next to a billion Chinese gamblers. For this reason he remains optimistic about longer term prospects for Macau gaming companies, although the industry would first have to survive and work its way through a difficult near-term period.

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