Charlotte startup Native Sportsbook is working to help tribal operators gain a higher profit in the burgeoning sports betting industry through its innovative technology.
Native Sportsbook's services come as gambling has for decades been a vital source of income for several Native American tribes. And with sports betting and online wagering on the rise — including the recent passage of a North Carolina bill allowing online/mobile gambling and sportsbooks — that financial lifeline has become more vulnerable.
Thomas Gilanyi and Randall Crowe co-founded Native Sportsbook in 2020 after recognizing tribes were missing out on bigger revenue opportunities due to larger online platforms such as FanDuel entering the market. Crowe is an enrolled member of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians.
The local startup serves as a sports betting technology provider and platform, primarily targeting small and midsized tribal operators. Though founded in Charlotte, Native Sportsbook currently operates out of Cherokee, where Harrah's serves as one of only three tribal casinos in North Carolina that allows sports betting. The others are in Murphy and Kings Mountain.
"One of the things that really bothered Randall at that time was they were taking a very commercial view of sports betting and iGaming and implementing that into tribal operators," Gilanyi said. "It was forcing tribal operators to implement sports betting, but they were losing money. And that took money out of Native American communities."
He said Native Sportsbook started as a bootstrapped business, and they worked for nearly three years to implement a different approach to sports betting — one that puts money back into tribal operators. It's achieving that through providing mobile, online and retail in-house business-to-business sportsbook solutions. Gilanyi said that has allowed Native Sportsbook to reduce operating costs by up to 50% for clients.
"And because of that, these tribal operators can have a higher profit, implement sports betting and give more back to the Native American communities that rely on these operations," he said.
In February, Native Sportsbook also received its Gaming Laboratories International 33 certification for its new technology. That enables the startup to be compliant with sports betting industry standards in every state.
Native Sportsbook is close to securing its gaming license in Wisconsin and plans to launch its first sportsbook in the state's Sevenwinds Casino before the NFL playoff season kicks off. With sportsbooks and online gambling just being legalized in North Carolina, the company aims to launch a sportsbook in the state as well, Gilanyi said. That location was not disclosed.
Sevenwinds will serve as Native Sportsbook's first successful casino contract. It's currently in the final stages of negotiating three other contracts, which Gilanyi expects to rapidly grow the business.
"Once we can have that, that first contract in the books and fully operational during NFL season this year, then we'll have a lot of fast followers and allow us to drastically scale," he said.
Gilanyi said prior to legalization of sports betting in North Carolina, his company had zero market opportunities in the state. And now that it has been signed into law, Native Sportsbook can help local businesses grow.
"It'll allow us to take our tailored customizable software and operation models and really try to help local companies succeed within sports betting," he added. "We can help those smaller operators, those midsize operators achieve success, and through their success, we can be successful."
