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Sportradar Reports First Quarter Results
Betting Technology & Solutions revenues of €250 million were up 14% year-over-year primarily driven by a 13% increase in Betting & Gaming Content primarily from customer uptake of additional products and from U.S. market growth. Managed Betting Services revenues were up 16% driven by strong growth in Managed Trading Services from increased turnover and higher […]
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Compression-Focused Running Partnerships : Motiv Sports
Performance apparel brand 2XU and race organizer Motiv Sports have recently announced a three-year partnership that promises to enhance runner experiences through innovative gear and community-focused events. This collaboration will position 2XU as the exclusive compression technology partner across Motiv Sports’ 11 premier races, including notable events like the Long Beach Marathon and Bay to […]
The collaboration emphasizes practical athlete support through specialized products like the 2XU Long Run Tee — a durable, performance-oriented alternative to standard race shirts. The two companies also host educational initiatives about compression benefits for those leading active lifestyles.
Phyllis Blanchard, VP of Commercial Partnerships for Motiv Sports, shared about the partnership: “2XU understands what it means to back athletes, not just through words but through design, detail, and credibility. Their presence will enhance the participant experience at every level, and we’re excited to see what we can create together.”
Image Credit: 2XU x Motiv Sports
Technology
Sports gambling needs guardrails, Jonathan D. Cohen says
Brendan Ruberry: How has the status quo on sports betting changed since the Murphy v. NCAA Supreme Court decision? Jonathan D. Cohen: Until May 14, 2018, there was no prospect of any state legalizing sports betting, and now 38 states and Washington, DC have legal sports gambling. [Among those states,] 30 allow you to gamble […]
Brendan Ruberry: How has the status quo on sports betting changed since the Murphy v. NCAA Supreme Court decision?
Jonathan D. Cohen: Until May 14, 2018, there was no prospect of any state legalizing sports betting, and now 38 states and Washington, DC have legal sports gambling. [Among those states,] 30 allow you to gamble on any device with internet access. And that has, over the last seven years, birthed a $120 billion per year market. Before, if you wanted to bet on sports, you had to do it in Vegas, or you could do it illegally. And now you can, in most states, do it from the touch of your phone.
Ironically, we are currently building the setup that is being taken down in other countries, because other countries are now seeing all the problems that result from online gambling, and they are pulling back and adding regulations. And we’re rushing headlong into the deregulated space that they are vacating as quickly as possible.
Who is Kyle and why is his story central to the state of play in the industry right now?
Kyle is illustrative as a 26-year-old white man, which speaks to the demographics of sports betting. But he’s also illustrative in that he was someone who had gambled before it became legal first in Colorado and then in Kansas, where he lives. But he had never run into trouble, had always sort of gambled within his means when he was at a casino or when he had been placed a few bets on sports in college. And it was only because of its online availability that he gambled above his means and couldn’t pay his rent for one month, that he lost his job, that he found himself up at three in the morning betting on minor league British darts, that he had to call the Colorado Problem Gambling hotline, that he moved back in with his parents because he ran out of money. Now, every time there’s a major tennis tournament, he just disappears for 40 consecutive hours gambling on sports. Not that every single person who’s gambling on sports is having experiences like his, but he’s the kind of person who never would have run into trouble gambling, but for the fact that it appeared one day on his phone and without guardrails to stop him from running into trouble.
He might not be the typical gambler, as we see it, but he is typical of how these companies make their money.
Yes, the business model basically writes off 60%-plus of players. At least 60% of NFL bettors account for a total of 1% of sportsbook revenue, and as much as 80% of revenue for these companies comes from a core group of 3% of gamblers. There’s lots of products like this, where a small group of people account for a huge share of profits. But fundamentally, it’s not an accident that someone like Kyle loses too much money. It is sort of baked into the way these companies operate, that there are going to be a small subset of people from whom they can extract a lot of money and a large share of their revenue.
You profile Colorado in particular. What’s illustrative about how Colorado approached legalizing sports gambling?
So after the Murphy decision, it wasn’t inevitable that we’d have so many states go all in so quickly, right? It wasn’t organic. It was in Colorado, DraftKings and FanDuel in particular [were] showing up, helping to write the legislation to govern gambling once that passed, helping to basically astroturf the ballot referendum that passed sports betting. And then sitting in the room with the regulators, helping them craft the regulations that would govern the sports folks’ own behavior. So not only would sports betting not have passed as quickly were it not for the companies’ political involvement, but the all the harms and issues that we have from sports betting now are, in part, resultant of the fact that the foxes were inside the hen house, playing with all the hens while the regulations were being developed.
You say at one point that these are more like tech companies than traditional sportsbooks or casinos.
This is a huge branding operation with a seamlessly designed app. What they have to offer is all this specialized software under the hood that lets them, at every second of every baseball game, change the odds of whether the next pitch is going to be 88 miles an hour, so that you can bet on that. They can have the most efficient line possible developed in a fraction of a second. And the other way they’re like tech companies is mimicking all the addictive and troublesome aspects of social media apps, for example, just like the endless scroll and the endless short options for dopamine hits. And the seamless app interfaces they’ve learned at the feet of these other borderline addictive companies and products, and they are now to offer an actual addictive product, of gambling.
And I would assume, like other tech companies, they deal in data, and data is sort of their critical resource. What do we know about how much data these companies have and how they’re using it?
This is what’s most frustrating to me, as someone who wants to advocate for a change: These companies have more data on gamblers than any gambling operation in recorded human history, right? Vegas casinos of the 1950s would kill for the kind of information that DraftKings and FanDuel have. And there’s a really revealing video from a Fanatics executive who talks about how easy it is for them to spot problem gambling. They have all this data on player behavior. The question is how they’re using it. It seems like they’re using it to identify problem gamblers and make money from them; or identify losers and make money from them, rather than cut off people who have obvious gambling problems and stop them from gambling. This is anecdotal, they claim that it’s all trade secrets, and they won’t give up any of their data. But again, like a tech company rather than a sportsbook, it is their primary resource. Whenever you sign into the app, and you see a customized parlay, that’s like, ‘wow, that looks perfect for me’ — no sh*t, it is perfect for you. They built it for you. And because they know what teams you like, and they know what you like to bet on.
The fear [with AI is] that they can get even better at these sorts of micro transactions, at the fast betting, and then they can super-customize it to make it even more enticing than it already is. Good luck to all of us.
There’s an observation in the book about how professional gamblers are trying to circumvent some of these pattern-recognition abilities that these companies have. Could you talk about that?
I’m drawing on the work of a professional gambler I talked to named Isaac Rose-Berman, who, from his own conversations with professional gamblers, basically realized that the apps don’t want to shut off losers. They don’t want to shut off anyone who’s bad at betting, and they really don’t want to shut off anyone who’s going to lose a lot of money. So the longer that professional gamblers can make the apps think that they are just a stupid, lucky bettor on a hot streak, the better chance they have of betting for longer and making money before they finally get caught. So Isaac has described betting on Aaron Judge to hit a home run — which is like the most vanilla bet you can possibly make — so that he looks like a normie, so he doesn’t look like a professional bettor. Because, again, they don’t want professional bettors on their apps, but they do want losers, and they do want the kind of people who place a bet on Aaron Judge to hit a home run. (No offense to Yankees fans — well, some offense to Yankees fans.) On the one hand, professional gamblers are [a small percentage] of the bettors. But on the other hand, the fact that they get cut off so quickly and so aggressively, to me, reveals that this whole thing is a house of cards; that they only actually want you if you’re a loser. And that second that you can make money, the second that you’re better than them, they stop you from doing it. So on the one hand, who cares? It’s a small, small group of people. But I think it’s really revealing of the fundamental issues behind the whole enterprise.
Tell me a little bit about the responsible gambling framework as it exists, and how you find fault with that.
There’s a lot of comparisons made of the gambling industry to tobacco and alcohol. A difference in this case is that the gambling industry doesn’t deny that problem gambling exists in the way that the tobacco industry denied any connection between lung cancer and cigarettes. But what they’re doing instead is this campaign for what they call ‘responsible gaming,’ or ‘responsible gambling,’ putting the onus of play on the individual in an attempt to ward off intrusive regulation or the need for guardrails. What they say is, ‘please play responsibly.’ They tell players to play responsibly, to call the hotline, while, of course, not actually providing any structure by which it would be easier for someone to play responsibly. They don’t stop anyone from betting three mortgage payments over the course of 35 seconds, if that is how they choose to play. Because what is responsible? Responsible is in the eye of the beholder. So responsible gaming is, in many ways, a beard for the industry. And the way that they can say, ‘oh, if someone runs into trouble on our app, it’s because they were gaming irresponsibly, and it’s their fault. We provided tools, this player didn’t take advantage of them. We would have cut them off if they had set a deposit limit or a time limit.’ But someone who’s addicted to gambling or has trouble gambling, they’re not going to set a deposit limit or do any of that. At some point, people who are addicted to gambling are not choosing to gamble.
The responsible gaming model is like, ‘hey, there’s a river over there. Don’t fall in.’ Whereas the public health model would be like, ‘hey, let’s build a fence around the river to stop people from falling in in the first place.’ And so my vision for a safer sports betting setup would have basically a bunch of speed bumps on the hill to stop people from rolling down and collecting steam and sort of developing an addiction and developing unsafe practices. If I were going to summarize it in a single word, it would be ‘friction’: If you deposit money, you can’t gamble with it for 12 to 24 hours. If you lose, and you are chasing your losses, then you can’t place another deposit. You can only place a certain number of deposits in the span of a day or a few days — anything to slow down the process.
I don’t want to make it so that it’s impossible for someone to place an innocent bet and augment their sports viewing experience. But I do want to make it impossible, or almost impossible, that someone placing an innocent $5 bet for fun can be the start of a dangerous journey that leads them into addiction or other kinds of harm.
Why should FanDuel, DraftKings, BetMGM, Fanatics, or whomever care about someone falling into the river, if the river is where all the profits are?
You can shear a sheep many times, but you can only slaughter it once. And so the market, the competition, is so fierce right now among the firms that there’s this perception that there’s always more efficiency. That we can always just find more bettors, especially when Texas, California, Minnesota, Georgia, and other states legalize sports betting, which they probably will at some point — not to mention the fact that if one of those companies were to cut you off from gambling, you can just run to a competitor. There’s no collaboration in place right now between the companies to remove the incentive to slaughter every sheep that shows up at their door. But that would be the long-term incentive. Yes, you’re making money right now, but in what I would call a fundamentally extractive business model, where at some point you’re going to run out of gamblers. Or at some point, the political winds are going to turn against you because of your irresponsible behavior, and over the long term, it’s not going to be a good look, and it’s not going to work. And I know it’s not going to be as profitable, but you should want a sustainable business model where people don’t tap out of sports betting because they keep having bad experiences And they become sort of long-term casual players who won’t lose that much money, but they’ll lose enough to keep your lights on.
I don’t know why any state needs to offer a market on Malaysian women’s doubles badminton. Those markets are basically just a trap door for gamblers who are looking for something to bet on at three in the morning, and that’s the only thing that’s available on the app — so in addition to [that], changing some of the ways people can interact with the app, fundamentally look at the app interface and design and remove some of the more sort of lizard brain, addictive, dopamine-providing aspects of the apps themselves.
Technology
Whoop Users Say Their New ‘Medical Grade’ Fitness Trackers Are Defective
Health tech company Whoop is dealing with another headache this week, as some who purchased its new premium Whoop MG fitness tracker report that the device is dying almost immediately. As Tech Issues Today reports, the “medical grade” version of Whoop’s newest gadgets are shutting down without warning. They “fail to display any LED lights, […]
Health tech company Whoop is dealing with another headache this week, as some who purchased its new premium Whoop MG fitness tracker report that the device is dying almost immediately.
As Tech Issues Today reports, the “medical grade” version of Whoop’s newest gadgets are shutting down without warning. They “fail to display any LED lights, refuse to pair with the mobile app, and remain unresponsive even when fully charged,” the site says.
Some report that Whoop is sending replacement devices, though others say they got the less expensive Whoop 5.0, not the MG. “The sheer volume of complaints suggests a potentially larger quality control issue with the initial batch of 5.0 MG trackers” Tech Issues Today notes.
We reached out to Whoop for comment and will update this story when we hear back.
The Whoop 5.0 and Whoop MG add new features like hormone tracking for women, irregular heart activity detection, and revamped sleep tracking, alongside a bigger battery.
The company offers its devices via a subscription service; users pay from $199 to $359 a year, and receive free hardware updates when new models are released. However, following the launch of its newest devices, Whoop faced accusations that it failed to honor a promise for device upgrades for those who had been members for at least six months. It required users to pay a $49 to $79 upgrade fee, or extend their subscription by 12 months, to get a newer device.
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Following backlash, Whoop said it would honor the free upgrade promise for those with more than a year left on their membership. Those with less than a year can extend their membership to receive an upgrade at no additional cost, or pay the one-time upgrade fee.
Whoop says the blog post that promised free upgrades after six months was posted in error.
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Chinese robot makers shine at Macau’s Beyond Expo as AI drives growth
At this year’s Beyond Expo in Macau, Chinese robot companies, including well-known names like Unitree Robotics and Engine AI, stole the spotlight. The event, which ran from May 22 to May 25, brought together more than 20 companies showcasing robots and related technologies. You could see robots performing everything from coffee-making to helping with rehabilitation. […]
At this year’s Beyond Expo in Macau, Chinese robot companies, including well-known names like Unitree Robotics and Engine AI, stole the spotlight. The event, which ran from May 22 to May 25, brought together more than 20 companies showcasing robots and related technologies. You could see robots performing everything from coffee-making to helping with rehabilitation.
The robotics industry in China is experiencing a surge in attention, fuelled by the wider boom in artificial intelligence. Even though some people still doubt what these machines can do, the energy and ambition of Chinese tech firms are clear. The conference showed how seriously these companies are taking their place on the world stage.
Humanoid robots draw crowds
One of the highlights came from Shenzhen-based Engine AI, which displayed its 1.38-metre (4.5-foot) tall humanoid robot, PM01. This sleek robot moved around the exhibition floor on May 23, drawing in curious onlookers. Priced at US$13,700, PM01 is designed mainly for cultural tourism and use in research institutions. According to a representative at Engine AI’s booth, the robot is already used in various public and academic settings.
Another attention-grabber was Beijing-based Noetix, which brought its expressive robot head, Hobbs, to the event. Hobbs is designed to mimic a wide range of human facial expressions. The device can be used in scientific studies and as a companion for older adults. Even with a steep price tag of 300,000 yuan (US$41,663), Noetix has already received dozens of orders, according to a company staff member. Notably, Hobbs recently gained attention by finishing second in a humanoid robot half-marathon held in Beijing, highlighting progress and ongoing challenges in robotic movement.
Investment in robotics is on the rise
The growing presence of robot companies at Beyond Expo reflects the increasing competition in China’s robotics industry. According to the country’s Ministry of Commerce, online sales of intelligent robots jumped 87% in the first four months of 2025 compared to the same period last year, based on data from the National Bureau of Statistics.
A recent report from market research firm ITJuzi revealed that robotics investment has outpaced key industries like semiconductors and new materials. In the first quarter alone, there were 98 investment deals in the sector, up 113% from the same period in 2024.
On May 23, the southern tech hub of Shenzhen announced the launch of two new investment funds totalling 7 billion yuan to support start-ups focused on robotics and smart devices. This move shows how serious local governments are about supporting innovation.
Mass production and future challenges
While Chinese firms are eager to scale up, challenges remain. Over 10 companies aim to start mass production of robots this year. However, the recent humanoid robot marathon also revealed how far these machines must go. Many robots in the race stumbled or fell, and only six out of 20 finished the course. These limitations point to ongoing hurdles in creating robots that can function reliably in real-world environments.
Wang Xingxing, CEO and founder of Unitree Robotics spoke earlier this month at an industry event in Shanghai. He pointed out a major roadblock: the lack of a unified “end-to-end” AI system. Without such a system, developers must still programme specific tasks into robots. A general-purpose AI would let robots learn and adapt independently to many jobs.
Even with this issue, there’s no denying the ambition on show at Beyond Expo. With strong investment, public interest, and clear signs of technological progress, the future of Chinese robotics looks promising. Whether you’re interested in tech, business, or just curious about tomorrow’s robots, it’s clear that China is ready to lead.
Technology
Where did the $1 billion for Facebook’s affordable housincg pledge go?
This story has been updated to include additional comment from Meta. In 2021, nonprofit developer Allied Housing received $1.5 million via a fund that Meta had set up as part of the technology company’s $1 billion commitment to affordable housing made two years earlier. The 59-unit affordable apartment building Allied planned — half of the […]
This story has been updated to include additional comment from Meta.
In 2021, nonprofit developer Allied Housing received $1.5 million via a fund that Meta had set up as part of the technology company’s $1 billion commitment to affordable housing made two years earlier. The 59-unit affordable apartment building Allied planned — half of the units reserved for formerly homeless renters — was exactly the kind of project Facebook’s parent company hoped its commitment would get off the ground.
Within a year, Allied repaid the money. Not because the project collapsed. Because the money wasn’t a gift—it was a loan, as was most of the money that Meta has invested into housing.
A $150 million loan fund for affordable housing, called the Community Housing Fund, is one of the only funding promises the company has kept as part of its 2019 announcement. A Bay Area News Group investigation found that Meta has largely abandoned its $1 billion housing pledge, having spent just $193 million six years in.
Executives cut most funding to the housing initiative in late 2022, according to three people with knowledge of the company’s decision-making who requested anonymity out of fear of professional repercussions. That year, Meta laid off most of the team and shelved plans for a second $250 million loan fund targeting middle-income housing. That money, along with another $332 million in committed capital, remains unspent.
Beyond the Community Housing Fund, Meta did fulfill some other parts of its plan: it gave $25 million to support new teach housing in Palo Alto, $15 million to a modular housing company, and gave out some $2 million in grants. It also pledged $225 million in land around its Menlo Park headquarters, where it says housing will eventually be built. But the company has yet to complete the necessary predevelopment work required to eventually go vertical, and the city said the company hasn’t laid out a specific timeline for construction.
During the years the housing team was active, it struggled to gain buy-in for the initiative with executives focused on the company’s bottom line, the sources said.
Like many tech companies around Silicon Valley, Meta lacks a corporate charitable arm. As people inside the company were drafting a concept for the housing initiative to present to Meta’s board, they had to consider ways to invest in housing that also wouldn’t significantly drain the company’s balance sheet. The vast majority of the pledge, therefore, took the form of low-interest loans.
The Community Housing Fund was the first — and only — of Meta’s loan funds to get off the ground. It gave out loans of up to $15 million at a 2% interest rate — much lower than other loans — to projects with at least 20% of their units reserved for extremely low-income tenants, according to the fund’s description.
This fund was unique in that it financed developers early on in the process to help pay for site acquisitions and architectural drawings — a stage when the development has a high risk of not panning out, which is why traditional banks don’t get involved until later.
The housing initiative team considered this a win-win: Developers got cheap money to get their housing projects off the ground. Meta could get their money back in one to eight years, with a small return.
“It was a resounding success,” said Ray Bramson, chief operating officer of Destination: Home, a San Jose nonprofit aimed at ending homelessness, which partnered with Meta on the fund.
But people familiar with the program say it was meant to go even further.
When the Community Housing Fund was launched, Meta had intended to keep the money recirculating — so that money repaid would be funneled into new projects, according to three people familiar with the Community Housing Fund who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they feared professional repercussions.
But those people say that Meta decided that once the original $150 million is spent, that money will not replenish the fund, but return to the company.
Meta denied that the loan fund was ever intended to be revolving, and said that the agreement governing the fund doesn’t allow for funds to be recycled. In a previous statement to this news organization, the company said it is “an active partner in addressing the region’s housing shortage” and that it will continue to update stakeholders as it makes progress on its decades-long commitment.
So far, the Community Housing Fund is nearly spent through. According to Meta, the loans have supported 19 projects in the five core Bay Area counties, helping to get over 2,000 units entitled, with nearly half dedicated to those making less than 30% of the area median income, or $42,200 for a single person in Santa Clara County.
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