Sara Dalsheim on Successful Licensing, Marketing and Regulatory Strategies for iGaming Clients

By: Ifrah Law

For businesses competing in the rapidly evolving iGaming industry, it is a huge advantage to have a lawyer who knows the game and has an intense desire to win. Sara Dalsheim combines her life-long passion for sports with diverse experience in sports betting and iGaming law. She is adept at guiding clients through regulatory and licensing processes, negotiating agreements, and structuring business partnerships that seek to reduce risk and drive growth.

Sara has a reputation for spotting the legal factors that can have an outsized impact on the client’s business strategy. She works with the client to explore opportunities to meet aggressive business goals as well as compliance imperatives – setting the stage for potential short- and long-term growth and future M&A scenarios.

Across the iGaming ecosystem, Sara advises in-house counsel and C-suite executives, as well as startups and entrepreneurs, in matters ranging from compliance with federal and state regulations, to complex contract negotiations, to dispute resolution. Across the U.S., indigenous tribes, professional sports teams, and technology companies look to Sara for counsel. Her regulatory experience across jurisdictions with varying legislative approaches to gaming gives her an edge in negotiating multi-million dollar agreements for clients.

Clients gain value from Sara’s keen insights and comprehensive knowledge of state licensing and regulatory processes surrounding sports betting. More broadly, she has built a reputation as a trusted source of information throughout the sports, gaming and licensing industry.

Tackling Tough Topics: Engaging with Regulators on Influential iGaming Policy

Affiliate marketing lets businesses harness crowdsourcing to efficiently acquire new customers. A sports betting platform, for example, might cease buying traditional advertisements (which do not guarantee results) and instead reward affiliates (such as content creators and third-party marketers) only when they bring users to its site. It’s a win-win for the company (which can focus less on marketing) and the affiliate (who can generate revenue). The sports bettors arguably win as well, because affiliates often are a superior source of information about where and even how to bet.

At the federal level, there are established consumer protection rules regarding disclosure of affiliate marketing arrangements. At the state level, however, regulations governing these relationships are less developed. State regulators thus often focus on cracking down on the practice of paying affiliates for generating users (bettors), without fully appreciating the role such affiliates play in informing the public and in keeping offshore books out of their respective states.

Sara actively advocates on behalf of clients to clarify the importance of affiliate marketing in supporting a vibrant, transparent ecosystem for online sports betting. She endeavors to work with regulators, in an informational and educational role, to change existing regulations – or to prohibit future adoption of regulations – that may adversely affect the ability of market affiliates to monetize the information and resources they provide.

“Regulators are committed to protecting the public interest while also ensuring a healthy gaming industry in their states. Affiliate marketing can contribute to both of those goals by giving players access to information from affiliates they recognize, and giving operators an efficient, performance-based mechanism for finding and engaging qualified players.”

MVP HIGHLIGHT REEL

Lifecycle Guidance: Online and Sports Betting Insights Helps Start-Up Grow; Later Achieves $1B Exit

An aspiring daily fantasy sports (DFS) operator contacted Ifrah Law’s Sara Dalsheim to request a formal legal opinion for their new product. Such opinions are required before an operator can contract with a payment processor. The DFS company was seeking a 50-state legal survey of licensing requirements to set the stage for a nation-wide rollout of their product.

Sara explained that such comprehensive national reviews are very costly, and she spent time talking with them about their company, product and goals. She learned that they were in an early stage and operating with limited funds. She offered an alternative to a 50-state review: a narrower, more affordable legal opinion to cover only the states that do not require a license. This approach would let them access 20+ unlicensed markets and build business momentum. The clients agreed to move forward with Sara’s plan.

About a year later, the client contacted Sara again. They had successfully launched in the non-licensed states, had grown their business, and had attracted new investors. They now were ready to take their product into licensed states. Sara helped to identify which states offered the greatest potential return from investing in a license. The client moved forward with this plan, as well.

Subsequently, Sara helped the client pivot into sports betting, getting them licensed in a targeted state, identifying and contracting with a suitable partner, and clearing their legal path through to the launch of their first sports betting site.

The client ultimately sold its sports betting operation for more than a billion dollars.

Data Into Dollars:  Comparative Odds Client Converts Quality Player Relationships Into M&A Deal

An Ifrah Law client had become a leader in providing comparative odds, allowing players to select their most compelling bets in real time on the iGaming platform of their choice. The client had built a massive database of attractive players, and wanted Ifrah’s help with strategies for monetizing that database.

Sara Dalsheim was an integral part of the Ifrah team that guided the client through a multifaceted affiliate marketing strategy. She negotiated agreements for the client to provide player data to some of the largest sportsbooks in the industry, receiving a revenue share in return.

Over time, the client’s reputation attracted the interest of sports betting groups that maintain their growth by acquiring smaller firms that have high-quality customer data. Sara played a critical role in helping our client seal a very attractive M&A deal with a global betting group, which resulted in the client selling its operation for more than $200 million.