We'll Take It Under Advisement
We'll Take It Under Advisement
Delaware and Mississippi are candidates to expand from retail-only betting to mobile sports betting in 2024, but several hurdles stand in their way.
The Bulletin Board
NEWS: A Delaware working group has recommended multi-operator mobile sports betting, but the Lottery’s current contract is an exclusive deal with RSI.
NEWS: A Mississippi Task Force is expected to release its online sports betting findings tomorrow.
LOOSE ENDS: Black market ops target self-excluded gamblers; Google Ads policy update; Las Vegas Sands is really interested in Texas.
NEWS: Vermont sports betting will begin in January, with three familiar names winning operator contracts.
QUICK HITTER: Fanatics enters its soft launch phase in Connecticut. The full launch is planned for Monday.
AROUND the WATERCOOLER: Affiliates get a reprieve in NC. Kalshi is taking its election betting proposal to Congress.
STRAY THOUGHTS: Parsing data is much more complex than people pretend.
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Delaware Lawmakers Recommend Online Sports Betting
Delaware’s Internet Sports Lottery Legislative Working Group has released its final recommendations (after a five-month delay). The group recommended the state expand its sports betting offerings and license multiple online operators.
The report concludes with the following:
“It is quite clear that the absence of online sports wagering is detrimental to our revenue in Delaware when our surrounding states have online sports wagering. During our meetings, it was demonstrated that there have been many attempts to place online bets in Delaware. This is lost revenue for our state.”
The recommendations include the following:
Delaware needs to have an online sports lottery;
Delaware needs to have multiple online sports lottery operators(skins);
Delaware should provide for a tethered model with existing video lottery agents;
Delaware should protect the horse racing industry and purse contributions; and
Delaware should provide additional resources for problem gambling.
However, the recommendations conflict with the Lottery’s current contract with Rush Street Interactive.
“We waited for quite a bit of time before actually signing that contract with RSI, but it was very clear that many Delawareans wanted us to provide a local sports app,” Delaware Lottery Director Helene Keeley said. “We will implement what the legislature tells us to do, however, the lottery believes that one vendor is sufficient for the state of Delaware.”
Mississippi Is Another Mobile Betting Contender
Mississippi is another state with retail sports betting that is considering mobile sports betting.
Mississippi Gaming Commission executive director Jay McDaniel anticipates a mobile sports betting push in 2024. “Since 2018, we have seen at least a bill be introduced,” McDaniel told local press.
But he also noted that the state has considered mobile betting since 2018, and so far, not so good.
“What we have not seen is one of those bills come out of a committee yet for a floor debate. So, your guess is as good as mine as to whether we’ll get to that. So, I think you can expect in January to see a bill. The question will be whether that bill actually comes out of a committee for debate to be passed.”
One glimmer of hope is the expected findings of Mississippi’s Mobile-Online Sports Betting Task Force, which is due to release its findings tomorrow, December 15.
The task force has met three times, with the pros and cons of mobile betting being weighed.
Along with the typical cannibalization concerns, one notable concern was mobile sports betting acting as a trojan horse for online casino gambling.
At one of the meetings, Keith Crosby, the General Manager of Palace Casino, called mobile sports betting a “half-step to gaming” and called BS on anyone saying otherwise.
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Loose Ends: Targeting the Self-Excluded; Google Ads; LVS and Texas
An interesting editorial from IGaming Business points to illegal operators purposely targeting self-excluded players who are high-revenue customers. According to iGB, “These operators focus on search terms related to self-exclusion loopholes.”
Google has (once again) updated its gambling advertising policy and now requires licensed entities to apply for certification before they begin placing ads. The new policy will take effect with Vermont sports betting (see below) and lottery couriers in Arkansas, Montana, New Jersey, and New York.
An interesting side note to Miriam Adelson’s purchase of a majority stake in the Dallas Mavericks is the July acquisition by Las Vegas Sands of 108 acres in Irving, Texas, near the Texas Rangers and Dallas Cowboys stadiums.
VT Sports Betting: Operators and Launch Date Announced
Vermont’s sports betting industry will spring into being in less than a month. Pre-registration began on Tuesday.
Earlier this week, the state announced a launch date of January 11 for its mobile betting platforms, of which there will be three.
DraftKings, FanDuel, and Fanatics Sportsbook were selected to operate mobile sports wagering platforms in Vermont, per Gov. Phil Scott.
“I first proposed Vermont legalize sports wagering several years ago, and it’s good to see it come to fruition,” Scott said in a statement. “Vermonters and visitors alike will soon be able to access a regulated sports wagering marketplace, which will come with important consumer protections and generate revenue for the State.”
The state received a total of five applications and rejected two: MGM and Penn Entertainment.
According to Wendy Knight, the Department of Liquor and Lottery commissioner, the reasons behind the rejections were missing documents from Penn and MGM’s proposal of a sliding tax scale based on how many operators were licensed by the state. That model was “not acceptable,” according to Knight.
One fascinating detail is that in a first-of-its-kind situation, FanDuel will pay more in taxes than its peers. FanDuel’s proposal had a 33% revenue-sharing split, while DraftKings and Fanatics offered a 31% split.
Quick Hitter: Fanatics CT Soft-Launch; Full Launch on Monday
Fanatics is up and running in Connecticut… well, sort of. The company is currently in a soft launch phase after the recent announcement of its contract with the Connecticut Lottery.
The soft launch began on Tuesday and will continue through the weekend, per reporting from Jeff Edelstein over at Sports Handle. Access is limited to just 2,000 customers during the soft launch period.
If all goes according to plan, the site will be fully operational and open to anyone in Connecticut on Monday.
Around the Watercooler
Social media conversations, rumors, and gossip.
Per Robert Linehan, affiliates can breathe a sigh of relief… for now. For a deeper dive on this topic, affiliates coming under increasing regulatory scrutiny is one of the stories on my 2024 radar.
And in totally unrelated news, after striking out with the CFTC, Kalshi is making its case for election betting to Oregon Sen. Jeff Merkeley. More of my thoughts on election betting can be found here.
Stray Thoughts
When you’re looking at data, there are very few straight lines.
The number one question thrown my way pre-PASPA was about cannibalization. Are New Jersey online casinos cannibalizing Atlantic City casinos?
Most of the evidence pointed to no, but it’s a near-impossible question to answer.
Atlantic City lost five casinos within a couple of years of online gambling legalization. Then, a couple of new casinos opened. Then there was the Pandemic. All of these things cause casino revenue to ebb and flow and make it impossible to draw concrete conclusions about online gambling’s impact.
In other locales, new casinos are opening in neighboring states, new in-state casinos, new forms of gambling are introduced, tax rate changes, broader economic changes, and more.
That makes answering the seemingly simple question, do online casinos cannibalize land-based casinos, very complex.
The same complexities exist when we look at problem gambling rates or even something as mundane as calls to a state helpline. The latter seems about as clear-cut as you can get: Calls have increased x% since the introduction of sports betting looks pretty straightforward.
People don’t consider that the legalization of sports betting mandated that the helpline number be included in ads. So, how often was that number displayed before sports betting? Calling a helpline number is hard if you don’t know it exists. And, of course, many anecdotes point to some of the increase in calls being account-related: I’m having trouble depositing or verifying my identity/location.
As I often say, I can make the data say pretty much whatever you want.