A Bit Of Good News In Minnesota
A Minnesota sports betting bill is on the move, but a significant issue needs to be resolved: should commercial tracks be involved? Tracks say yes; tribes say no.
The Bulletin Board
NEWS: Minnesota sports betting bill progresses, but a significant hurdle remains unresolved.
LOOSE ENDS: Iowa college betting update; Lobbyists cash in; Catena’s new CEO; FanDuel + Panthers in North Carolina
VIEWS: Why most news sites are not covering the launch of legal online casino games in Rhode Island.
NEWS: North Carolina mobile sportsbooks are set to go live on Monday, and I have one small request for anyone registering an account.
AROUND the WATERCOOLER: No, gambling is not dead. Change takes time.
STRAY THOUGHTS: RG vs. PG, and why we need to stop conflating the two.
SPONSOR’S MESSAGE - Sporttrade was borne out of the belief that the golden age of sports betting has yet to come. Combining proprietary technology, thoughtful design, and capital markets expertise, our platform endeavors to modernize sports betting for a more equitable, responsible, and accessible future.
Learn more about what makes Sporttrade an unparalleled player experience here.
Can Minnesota Score a Victory in 2024?
Positive news is in short supply on the online gambling legalization front this year.
Wyoming was an online casino shooting star in 2024, suddenly appearing and quickly fizzling out.
Maryland’s efforts to legalize online casinos have run into all sorts of opposition.
Alabama looked like it would be this year’s dark horse after the House of Representatives easily passed a comprehensive gambling expansion package. Unfortunately, the Senate sent mobile betting to the glue factory, eliminating it and commercial casinos from the bill.
One possible bright spot is Minnesota. A sports betting bill (SF 1949) that would give tribes complete control of retail and mobile betting in the state was approved by the Senate Commerce and Consumer Protection Committee and is now in the Committee on Taxes.
However, there is a new complication, as the Committee decided to prohibit in-play betting, which, as State Rep. Pat Garafolo noted, is a deal-breaker:
Going back to the good news, I’ve heard from sources that Minnesota tribes are all on the same page on online sports betting (there were some disagreements in the past). However, there is still a significant hurdle, as the state’s two commercial racetracks insist they get a piece of the action, which the new bill doesn’t do.
During the committee hearing, Minnesota State Sen. Zach Duckworth was against moving the bill forward, noting that the committee was kicking the track issue down the road.
“I do believe the tracks need to be given a fair shot, and I think they need to have some certainty,” Sports Handle reports. “We’re telling people right now as it relates to these two issues that we will figure it out… I think it’s a poor way for the legislature to govern to just move bills along and promise changes in other committees.”
And, as previously noted by STTP, “the legislature is in session for less than 100 calendar days in 2024. Add in 2024 being a presidential election year, and the amount of time devoted to legislation gets even shorter.”
Loose Ends: Iowa College Betting Update; Lobbyists Cash in; Catena’s New CEO; FanDuel + Panthers
What scandal: The Iowa-Iowa St. college betting scandal has taken a wild turn as the prosecutor handling the case has filed a motion to dismiss all charges after the investigative methods of the Iowa Division of Criminal Investigation (DCI) were called into question.
Guaranteed winners: With around a dozen proposals and just three New York City casino licenses up for grabs, there will be quite a few losers. One group that is guaranteed a win is the lobbyists. Per the New York Post, prospective casinos have spent millions on lobbyists as they jockey for one of the three coveted licenses.
Catena Media’s new CEO: Less than a week after the resignation of CEO Michael Daly, Catena Media has already appointed his successor, Manuel Stan, a former Kindred executive with experience in the North American market. Stan will try to get the Catena ship back on course, but that is easier said than done.
FanDuel + Panthers: FanDuel has signed an agreement with the Carolina Panthers in North Carolina. FanDuel had already secured market access in North Carolina through the PGA Tour. Hence, the Panthers partnership is more of a cross-promotion deal, with the (possible) added benefit of taking an available license off the board (more on North Carolina’s mobile launch below).
SPONSOR’S MESSAGE - SUBSCRIBE NOW to Zero Latency, the new podcast from Eilers & Krejcik Gaming that provides unparalleled insight into the U.S. online gambling industry through interviews with industry insiders and analysis from EKG experts.
Affiliates Ignore Rhode Island Online Casino Launch
Rhode Island’s online casino quietly sprung into existence last week during a soft-launch phase, with the official launch occurring on Monday.
This should be big news since Rhode Island is just the seventh state to offer legal online casino games. So why has it been so quiet?
I’ll turn to Bonus.com for a partial explanation. Paul Grimaldi, a spokesman for the Rhode Island Department of Revenue (RIDOR), told Bonus “that as of March 4, the app had 315 pre-registered account holders.”
Those numbers are so low in part because of Rhode Island’s tiny population of just 1 million residents. They are also low because of the industry’s structure, with online gambling run through the state lottery and Bally’s possessing a monopoly.
As such, affiliate sites that would typically bombard the market with bonus offers and information on the launch have been silent since there are no affiliate deals to be had in the market (kudos to Bonus for covering the launch).
Every affiliate site I visited (including Bonus.com) notes legal online casinos in Rhode Island are run by Bally’s but offer deposit bonuses to sweepstakes casinos:
Prepping for North Carolina Launch Week
North Carolina’s mobile sports betting industry will go live on Monday, and you can expect wall-to-wall coverage (and by coverage, I mean links to sign-up bonuses) as North Carolina is the only major online launch expected in 2024.
Here are the operators expected to go live next week:
Bet365 has partnered with the Charlotte Hornets.
BetMGM has partnered with Charlotte Motor Speedway.
DraftKings has partnered with NASCAR.
ESPN Bet has partnered with Quail Hollow Club (a PGA tour venue).
Fanatics has partnered with the Carolina Hurricanes.
FanDuel has partnered with the PGA Tour and the Carolina Panthers.
Underdog has partnered with Sedgefield Country Club (a PGA tour venue).
Caesars has partnered with the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians.
If you plan on signing up for North Carolina mobile betting accounts, may I suggest using a smaller affiliate? You’ll get the same offers, and you’ll be helping small businesses trying to compete with multinational corporations.
My friends at BettingUSA.com are a good option (BUSA’s North Carolina page is here). They have pre-registration deals with DraftKings, FanDuel, and BetMGM. BettingUSA is well known for its in-depth reviews of sites, even ones it isn’t partnered with.
Author’s note: I have no financial relationship with BettingUSA, a company I worked for a couple of years during the pandemic and have a great deal of respect for.
Around the Watercooler
Social media conversations, rumors, and gossip.
New conference, new decade, same take.
To be fair, this is an out-of-context snippet from Buhagiar’s remarks, which I don’t have in full.
As I noted in my response, I’ve heard countless people say this at countless conferences over the last decade.
Does gambling evolve and look different on the surface? Yes. Have new delivery channels been discovered as technology advances? Yes. Do people age into more traditional forms of gambling? Yes. All of these things can be true, but what is incredibly unlikely is a fundamental shift in the way people gamble over a five or even ten-year period.
Online gambling started in the mid-1990s, but it took nearly a decade before people were 1) aware of it and 2) using it regularly. Even then, the perfect storm of events that was the Poker Boom, was needed to jumpstart it. At its core, it’s the same as casino gambling, and both things live in harmony side-by-side.
Over the last decade, I’ve heard about the following replacing the traditional (this is a very short list):
Freemium social casinos
Skill-based (video game) slot machines
Esports
All of these things have a market and have caught on (except for #2), but they haven’t replaced anything. It takes a really long time for that to happen, and most people lose sight of the simple fact that the next generation is one piece of the overall gambling puzzle.
Millennials, Gen X, and Boomers still exist and still gamble, and guess what? The older generations’ gambling habits also evolve. Like 70-year-olds on cell phones and using social media, people can adapt to new things.
Stray Thoughts
This has been on my mind for a while, but we need to have a conversation about the difference between responsible and problem gambling. I thought we were making progress on this front, but more and more, I’m seeing people (many of whom should know better) conflating the two.
That has led to responsible gambling messaging that all but accuses everyone of being or on the path to becoming a problem gambler.
Responsible gambling refers to the preemptive actions you take to try to avoid problematic play. It’s the safety briefing before you go skydiving.
Problem gambling is what happens after an extended period of problematic play.
Far too often, it feels like the discourse is akin to standing in front of a bar on St. Patrick’s Day and telling everyone going in they should limit themselves to two drinks this evening. Wrong crowd fellas, wrong crowd.
Responsible drinking should be communicated way in advance, with gentle nudges that cause people to self-reflect.
Problem drinkers are noticeable on the way out and, if we’re being honest, are far more likely to seek help in the aftermath.