after a 2-week newsletter hiatus…we are back! thanks for bearing with me while i roamed around Spain for my honeymoon.

and if you didn’t notice, that’s cool too, but i’d appreciate if you pretended you missed me 🍯🌙

this week’s starting 5 @ betonu:

🗣️ Dillon debrief: the NCAA did something smart for once? 🤯
🎤 sharp business talk: FanDuel is a behemoth 🐘
🧠 insightful insights: tangible ways to actually get down in the DM’s 📱
💼 dope jobs: Snapchat and FIFA on the board for the first time ⚽
🐰 rabbit holes: was competitive walking the first sport people bet on? 👣

_{👉 was this one forwarded to you from a good-lookin friend?}_{join betonu}_{so you don’t miss the next.}

🗣️ Dillon debrief

^{(where i pretend to be an opinion columnist)}

the NCAA recently vot ed in favor of allowing their employees and players to bet on pro-sports.

this is a great move! (a rare statement when referring to the NCAA, felt weird typing it.)

i’m not saying this because i think everyone should gamble, that’s a personal choice.

but the idea that players and staff were losing scholarships, jobs, and opportunities over placing a $30 NFL bet in a dorm room was absurd.

the vote passed in a 21-1 absolute blowout, so clearly something that many of us agree on.

now we need clear digestible policies instead of playing “gotcha” on an act that has been done in dorm rooms since dorm rooms were invented back in 1096 at Oxford.

NCAA may allow college student-athletes to bet on pro sports - Birches Health

The NCAA is reportedly considering lifting the ban on college athletes betting on professional sports, in part to streamline enforcement efforts.

bircheshealth.com/resources/ncaa-betting-on-pro-sports?utm_source=chatgpt.com

🎤 sharp business talk

^{(money moves and conversations with industry professionals)}

turns out FanDuel is a massive business. when i saw the news that Flutter (FanDuel’s parent company) is moving from the London Stock Exchange to the NYSE, i wasn’t really sure what that actually meant.

after diving in it’s clear that it means FanDuel in the US market is now THE priority for Flutter.

i have a unique perspective on this. i was around the 30th employee at FanDuel over a decade ago. my Customer Support Agent jersey is still hanging in the rafters. i was still at the company in 2018 as a VIP Manager when Flutter took on a large piece of the business for under 1B. what a steal.

i was not “in the room where it happens” back in 2018, but in hindsight, i’m not sure we truly realized how well positioned we were for US sports betting legalization. today it seems like FD/DK dominance was a foregone conclusion but that was not the mindset in 2018.

crazy to see how far it’s come.

side note - i’m no pocket watcher, but congrats to the execs who are getting a pay bump for the ages. would be nice if the original FanDuel founders could make a few bucks too.

🧠 insightful insights

^{(where business insights and sports gambling collide)}

i, and many others, talk frequently about “providing value” when trying to land an industry job. the term is honestly starting to make me nauseas but it’s so true that i dont know what else to do.

i want to give some specific ways to do this, to go along with the preaching.

🔥so here are 5 specific Linkedin DM prompts to help improve your chances of landing a sports gambling role:

Pitch a Social Media Manager with 5 short-form video hooks that would crush during NBA playoffs on TikTok 🎥
Message a Product Manager at a sportsbook with 3 UX flows you’d improve, and even better, mock up one in Figma 📲
Find a Startup Founder in the betting/fantasy space and send them 3 overlooked acquisition levers you’d test with $5K 🚀
Hit up a VIP Host with a calendar of player touchpoints from Week 1 to Super Bowl Sunday 📆
Message a Customer Support Manager with a script rewrite for handling payout delays with empathy + clarity 🎧