Swish Analytics Bombarded by Lawsuits Alleging Price-Fixing, Illegal Scraping
Swish Analytics is now fighting on two legal fronts, and the results could impact how the entire US sportsbook industry sources odds.
The San Francisco sports betting data company sued OddsJam and OpticOdds in December 2024, seeking more than $100 million and alleging the rivals scraped its proprietary odds data from sportsbook clients including FanDuel and bet365. Both defendants have now fired back in what is turning into a major legal showdown in the US sportsbook industry.
RotoWire has filed its own suit against Swish, accusing the company of scraping and misusing proprietary player injury data without permission. The allegation is pointed: the same automated scraping methods Swish complained about in December are now the basis of a case against it.
OddsJam and OpticOdds went even further with their claims. Their counterclaims allege Swish runs an unlawful price-fixing scheme under California’s Cartwright Act. The theory is that Swish provides competing sportsbooks with a shared algorithm for setting betting lines. When multiple operators rely on the same system, their odds converge, resulting in bettors seeing less price variation. The counterclaims argue this is exactly the kind of horizontal price coordination that antitrust law prohibits.
The Swish Scraping Hypocrisy Spotlight
The RotoWire case creates a specific problem for Swish beyond the financial exposure. The counterclaims from OddsJam and OpticOdds note that Swish’s own filings in the original December lawsuit admitted to scraping gambling and odds data from multiple sources. That is the same conduct Swish claimed was illegal when others did it to them.
That kind of admission rarely helps a plaintiff’s credibility. It also hands the defendants a symmetry argument: if scraping is permissible when Swish does it, the company cannot plausibly claim it is actionable when competitors do the same thing. From RotoWire’s perspective, Swish has shone a light on a tactic they themselves rely on. But this is really not the bigger issue at play.
The Algorithmic Odds Question Has Massive Industry Implications
The price-fixing counterclaim is the more significant allegation for the industry as a whole. Swish is a major B2B odds-making supplier. FanDuel, bet365, and other major operators use its systems. If multiple competitors are pricing lines from the same underlying model, the practical result is exactly what OddsJam and OpticOdds allege: homogenized odds that reduce competition between sportsbooks.
This is not a new concern in the US sportsbook vertical. Sharp bettors, line shoppers, and odds arbitrage traders have noted for years that major U.S. sportsbooks often post nearly identical opening lines. Some of that convergence reflects consensus market opinion, but some may reflect shared sourcing, which really works against the betting public. The antitrust question is whether shared algorithmic infrastructure crosses the line from efficient market-making into coordinated pricing that harms competition.
No court has yet ruled on that theory in the sports betting context. The OddsJam and OpticOdds counterclaims are the first formal legal challenge to the practice. The outcome could force structural changes to how U.S. sportsbooks source and display their odds.
The US Sportsbook Industry Is Now Completely Invested
Swish estimated its original damages at more than $100 million. Its total legal exposure is now considerably larger, with three separate actions pending. The company has not commented publicly since the counterclaims were filed, but it’s hard to imagine Swish had the foresight to anticipate this when it came up with its original damage estimate.
OddsJam and OpticOdds are now subsidiaries of Gambling.com Group, which acquired Odds Holdings for $160 million in early 2025. A publicly traded parent company with that kind of acquisition on its books has a strong incentive to fight rather than settle. The RotoWire case adds a third front that Swish did not anticipate when it filed in December.
Litigation in data-intensive industries often produces settlements before trial. That path looks more complicated here than it would have in December, and the entire US sportsbook industry is now watching very closely to see how this plays out.
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