There is a multi-billion dollar opportunity to rebuild the real-world gambling ecosystem in decentralised virtual worlds.

PointsBet isn’t the only Aussie bookmaker looking to grab their slice of the US market. Following a recent $12.5 million capital raise, PlayUp is looking to take their brand into the US through five market access agreements secured in New Jersey, Colorado, Indiana, Iowa and Tennessee.

The Gambling Fund has added what it believes is a mispriced bet to the portfolio by exploiting a reliable yet continually overlooked factor in great investments: insider ownership.

The U.S. market is maturing and the availability of legal online sports betting is increasing state-by-state. It will be some time before we see the level of consolidation of mature betting markets like the U.K. and Australia. We envision a U.S. online betting market with a handful of firms earning the lion’s share of revenues and profits, and are confident that Flutter will be one of the handful.

Budgets for flagship video games regularly exceed US$100m and this need for scale is a big advantage for the incumbent game publishers. The best content is rewarded with longer game play, which leads to more in-game spending over time. Even with gaming itself getting more of the consumer’s time, the market share of the top titles continues to grow.

Simplebet is a tech company leveraging data to build the future operating system of in-play betting for U.S. sports. Their goal: enable any bet imaginable, in real-time.

Microsoft is betting on a more gamer-centric vision of the video game industry, and recent content acquisitions are a necessary part of the business model innovation underway at Microsoft.

This month we review Waterhouse VC’s first full year of performance - and what a year it has been. The Gambling Fund returned 247% gross return for the year, with very strong performance from our highest conviction positions.