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How to play Purrrminator
Sports betting in Morocco, including online betting and virtual events, is reserved to state-owned Marocaine des Jeux et des Sports (MDJS). The company is 90% held by the Treasury and chaired by the sports minister.
Its exclusivity reportedly runs to 2036 under an unpublished 2016 convention with the state. The commercial operation is run under a tendered management contract rather than a licence. Unauthorised gaming houses and lotteries are criminal offences under articles 282 to 285 of the penal code.
MDJS has turned to the courts to challenge offshore betting. On 12 January the Casablanca commercial court, sitting in summary proceeding, ordered Maroc Telecom, Orange Maroc and Inwi to block 19 named betting sites and local payment intermediaries. Non-compliance carried a penalty of MAD10,000 a day.
What is Purrrminator?
Entain’s share price tumble follows a broader trend for gaming stocks in recent years. Added to that is a declining interest in the LSEG, as listed companies continue to exit at pace, including Flutter, which removed its secondary listing from LSEG in August.
The gaming giant left for greener pastures in the US, expecting to benefit from higher valuations in the most liquid equity market. But analysts have noted a similar downward trend in Flutter’s share price over time.
Down around 60% in a year, the risk is it becomes just another mid-tier consumer stock on a bigger exchange. “Deeper water doesn’t help if the current is moving somewhere else,” Corfai’s Ben Robinson recently said of Flutter’s stock price.
How to play Purrrminator
The institutional layer is largely invisible to customers presented with a P2P proposition. Retail users may technically trade against one another, but the depth required by a mass-market product cannot be supplied by occasional customers alone. Professional firms must be prepared to quote continuously and commit substantial capital.
Marantelli says the London-based White Swan is a significant market maker on several secondary exchanges, accounting for as much as 40% of activity on some platforms. Its particular focus is the RFQ, parlay market.
“Just better margins,” he says of that decision. “I think it’s more defendable. It’s the area that fewer people can do well. So I think it’s more defendable margin, more ability to get long-term contracts and beneficial positions.”
