Bill King

Senior writer Bill King is the lead contributor to Sports Business Journal’s In-Depth stories, Special Report coverage and profiles, in addition to covering boxing, MMA and the field of sports business education. He has won numerous national and regional writing awards since joining SBJ in 1998. King brings extensive experience to his work, having spent 12 years at daily newspapers in Florida, where he covered Major League Baseball, the NBA, NFL and major college football. BEATS: Special Projects/Profiles: General assignment; Boxing/UFC: (big-picture stories); Educational programs

ESPN Bet branding being put on 10 more Penn sportsbooks

Penn Entertainment plans to rebrand 10 sportsbooks in its retail casino chain to ESPN Bet in “early 2025,” bringing the total to 19 of the 43 retail properties that it operates.

Might Minnesota be the only state to legalize sports betting this year?

At this time of year -- for most of the last seven years -- lobbying strategist Jeremy Kudon could run down a list of states in which sports betting legislation was likely to be introduced in the upcoming session, confidently ranking them in order of which was most likely to pass.

November delivers record sports betting handles for 13 states to date

Records continue to fall as more sports betting handle data has come out, with 13 jurisdictions seeing record monthly handles during the thick of football season. 


Silver’s prescient betting op-ed, written a decade ago, laid early foundation for current standards

W hen NBA commissioner Adam Silver penned his seminal New York Times op-ed piece calling for the legalization of sports betting a decade ago this month, he stressed the need for “strict regulatory requirements and technological safeguards” that would protect consumers and make it easier for leagues ...

Early results show new handle records in nine states in October

Among the 12 states that have reported October data, nine hit new record sports betting handles last month.

Sportradar sounds optimistic about renewal with MLB

MLB is the last of the major U.S. leagues that has maintained deals with multiple data distributors, including both Sportradar and competitor Genius. Those are aligned to expire this year.

FanDuel continues riding parlay gains, remains skeptical on Fox's intentions to acquire stake

At a recent investors day, execs said parlays accounted for 70% of NFL and NBA bets.

ESPN Bet seeing early success with linking of ESPN app accounts

In Penn Entertainment’s earnings call last week, CTO Aaron LaBerge outlined early results from the Nov. 1 rollout of account linking that will allow users of ESPN Bet to track their wagers while on the ESPN app and enable ESPN Bet to personalize its user experience based on a deeper understanding of...

Genius says BetVision helping drive big uptick in in-play NFL wagering

Genius Sports hailed increased in-play betting generated through its watch-and-bet product in the first four weeks of the NFL season and the recent completion of a cluster of critical U.S. sportsbook renewals during its Q3 earnings call this week .