The Wild Machine

About The Wild Machine

At the top of the odds, we have a matchup between the Tampa Bay Lightning and either the Colorado Avalanche or Las Vegas Golden Knights. Tampa looks like a favorite thanks to their Goal Differential of +20, although they aren’t even top of the Discover Central division at this point, trailing both the Florida Panthers and Carolina Hurricanes.

Meanwhile, Colorado and Vegas are both competing to win the Honda West division, but 2019 champions St. Louis also up there in the standings, but with an even goal differential.

Also prominent in the potential matchups are the Boston Bruins, Montreal Canadiens and league leading Toronto Maple Leafs. Although Toronto has a better record than Tampa Bay, they’ve played four more games and have a worse goal differential, and perhaps an easier schedule thanks to being in the Scotia North division with the league’s worst team, the Ottawa Senators.

About The Wild Machine

Two blockbuster developments in the casino space earlier this year seemed to indicate an increasingly bullish bet on the sector, including Fertitta Entertainment’s acquisition of Caesars Entertainment in May. The other is a subsequent takeover offer of MGM Resorts from its largest shareholder, Barry Diller’s People Inc. But a negative shift in market conditions could affect both deals.

In July, Fertitta’s General Counsel Steven Scheinthal told the Nevada Gaming Control Board that the company had a letter of intent from banks to finance the transaction but was waiting for better borrowing conditions. Fertitta is assuming nearly $12 billion in Caesars’ debt and is committed to a $6.6 billion financing package.

“Our hope is that in the next few months there will be a window of opportunity where the market will be hotter and [it’s] a more interest rate friendly environment where we can go raise the money and then just put it in an escrow account,” Scheinthal said at the time.

About The Wild Machine

If the research firm’s $190 billion taker volume estimate proves accurate, it’d represent a more than eightfold increase from the $22 billion taker turnover seen last year.

Potentially boding well for the Macquarie forecast are at least two factors. First, there are signs of turnover increases across a variety of yes/no exchanges. Second, volume surged to start September with those spikes arriving even before the NFL season kicked off.

As Macquarie analyst Chad Beynon points out, prediction markets generated $4.3 billion in taker volume during the first week of September without any help from the NFL, building on momentum from the 2026 World Cup. However, the NFL’s impact was immediate, with taker volume hitting a daily record during Week 1 of the campaign.