It has two significant points of difference with its local competitors. It uniquely offers spread betting, where the wins or losses from a bet aren’t fixed, and it is heavily focused on US sports.

It has more markets on National Basketball Association matches – more than 500 – than any other bookmaker in the world. To support the business, it has a sophisticated technology platform and a small army of IT specialists and quantitative analysts.

It also has something that could provide a major asset in its attempt to gain a significant foothold in the US. While the co-founders own 37 per cent of the business, it has about 40 shareholders from the US, Hong Kong, Singapore and the UK. The shareholders have agreed to provide PointsBet with a fresh $30 million of equity that it can draw on for its initial US ambitions.

Among those shareholders is News Corp, which acquired equity in PointsBet through its "Scaleup Media Fund", which swaps advertising inventory for equity in early stage businesses. The News Corp connections could be a lot more valuable than just the advertising.

The US gambling market isn’t a national market, although there has been some talk that Congress may legislate to facilitate one in light of the Supreme Court decision. Also, some states – New Jersey in particular – are more advanced in preparing for legalised sports betting than others. That means it will take individual negotiations with the parties in each state – the racetracks and casinos – that are likely to obtain the initial licences to get access to each market that opens up over the next few years to generate any scale.

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To take advantage of any scale a digital bookmaker might be able to gain, they will need not only a multi-state offering (albeit with potentially a different partner and perhaps a slightly different offer in each state) but the ability to market to prospective punters. That means they will need major media partners to leverage what is likely to be a heavy marketing spend.

Among the major beneficiaries of the legalising of sport betting will be the sports themselves – billionaire Mark Cuban, who owns the Dallas Mavericks in the NBA, has said it could double the value of the top teams – and those who, like News Corp’s sibling, 21st Century Fox, own the rights to broadcast live sports.

There is a direct correlation between sports betting and the audience for televised sport – there are studies that show bettors watch about twice as much sports coverage as non-bettors, hence the interest of the broadcasters. News Corp and other non-broadcast media are also likely to benefit from a massive infusion of gambling-related advertising.

With more than half his existing Australian business devoted to betting on US sports (betting on the NBA is more popular than betting on the AFL) and a relationship with News to open media doors and provide some credibility with licence holders and regulators in the US, Swannell doesn’t appear intimidated by the competition with the global players despite the relative youth of his business.

The size of the existing US sports betting market isn’t really known, given that (with the exception of Nevada) it is mostly illegal, with a lot of betting conducted with offshore online bookmakers.
It is clearly very large though relatively unsophisticated because, apart from the Nevada bookmakers, there’s no on-the-ground experience of running legal sports books let alone the fixed odds and exotic bets commonplace here.

The Stars Group’s acquisition of CrownBet not only gave it access to the Australian market but, with 20 per cent of CrownBet still held by senior management, led by serial digital gambling entrepreneur Matthew Tripp, their experience and expertise in developing digital wagering businesses.

In effect, that big-dollar deal validated the view of the Australian digital gambling market and the technology and expertise within it as leading edge.

It also pointed to its potential to play a surprisingly significant role in the "land grab" scramble that will open up in the US – in New Jersey, the rules and regulations could potentially be in place within weeks – as the states begin offering sports betting licences.