Blood Shadow

What is Blood Shadow?

While sports event contracts are currently the tentpole category for the prediction market industry, data indicate bettors and traders are embracing other categories.

Fullstory points out that while 62% of consumers have dabbled in sports event contracts, 42% traded economic or financial derivatives on a prediction market while a comparable percentage transacted in an election or political event contract. More than a quarter traded at least one entertainment or pop culture derivative.

That widening breadth is vital for the industry at a time when some analysts estimate volume could jump to $10 trillion by 2035 – a projection that is largely rooted in other categories surpassing sports for the top spot.  

About Blood Shadow

For Yggdrasil, Game in a Box and Studio in a Box are therefore intended to become more than tools for its own development operation. Curwen envisages them supporting a wider creator ecosystem, although he acknowledges that proving the model commercially must come first.

“We’re still early,” he says. “The priority is to prove the model properly; make sure the games perform and demonstrate that it works commercially. If we do that, I think the opportunity is significant.”

Five years from now, Curwen expects the development landscape – and the studios operating within it – to look markedly different.

What is Blood Shadow?

Betfred currently operates approximately 1,094 retail shops across the UK. Done highlighted the concrete risks of Machine Gaming Duty – taxes on gambling machines – doubling from 20% to 40%, a move reportedly under consideration by Chancellor John Healey ahead of the Autumn Budget.

Betfred’s retail business still heavily depends on fixed-odds betting terminals (FOBTs) and in-shop gambling. Despite the maximum stake limit being cut to £2 in 2019, FOBTs account for roughly half of Betfred’s shop profits. Done emphasised that without these machines, retail betting wass “impossible”.

According to Done, such a tax rise would lead Betfred to close 495 of its shops within a year, resulting in the loss of 2,575 jobs and roughly £67 million in foregone tax revenue for the Exchequer.