It’s Friday on SBC Americas so once more our colleagues over at SportsHandle and friends deliver another round-up of the week’s big developments in US sports betting.
Latest Court Filing Points To No Florida Sports Betting Before NFL Season
Barring something highly unusual, a court appeal by a pair of Florida parimutuels means that the Seminole Tribe won’t be able to launch its Hard Rock Bet platform in the state ahead of the 2023 NFL season.
West Flagler and Associates Monday petitioned the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit for an en banc hearing following a three-judge panel’s June 30 decision in favor of the U.S. Department of the Interior (DOI).
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Industry Insiders: Dave Portnoy One Of The Biggest Winners In Post-PASPA Era
It’s clearly too early to know if PENN Entertainment’s decision to jettison the Barstool Sportsbook brand in favor of ESPN as its mobile sportsbook brand will work out. There will certainly be winners and losers in this decision, and the ramifications may not be known for years.
But according to numerous observers of the sportsbook industry space whom Sports Handle asked about the deal, there is one big winner in all this: Dave Portnoy, the founder — and once again 100% owner — of Barstool Sports.
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Media Notebook: Skepticism Abounds In Reactions To ESPN BET Announcement
Last week’s massive news in the legal sports betting industry — that PENN Entertainment will be partnering with ESPN to launch ESPN BET this fall — was in fact massive enough to serve as “A block” news far beyond the borders of the gambling industry.
Every TV talking head, columnist, and podcaster had a take, it seemed, on the marriage between those four uppercase letters that have long been synonymous with sports content and those other four uppercase letters that most of the mainstream media knew nothing about prior to last Tuesday’s news release.
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Fanatics Sportsbook Launches Official App In Four States
Fanatics Sportsbook launched its long-awaited mobile sports wagering app on Wednesday, hitting another important milestone in its bid to be a competitive player in the U.S. sports betting marketplace.
The launch comes after approximately six months of beta testing in the four jurisdictions — Maryland, Massachusetts, Ohio, and Tennessee — where Fanatics is currently accepting mobile bets. The app, usable on both iOS for Apple and Android platforms, is now available in those four states. Fanatics Sportsbook’s recent $225 million acquisition of PointsBet’s U.S. holdings has provided market access to additional states, but there is no specific timeline for expansion into those markets.
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WynnBET Exit Means Licenses Will Be Available In Arizona And Virginia
When Wynn Resorts announced last week that it will be unwinding its WynnBET wagering platform in eight states, it opened up an unexpected opportunity for any operator not currently live in two particular states.
The company said it will cease operations as soon as possible in Arizona, Colorado, Indiana, Louisiana, New Jersey, Tennessee, Virginia, and West Virginia and will reconsider its positions in Michigan and New York. Platforms in Massachusetts and Nevada, where the company has expansive retail locations, will continue.
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Sports Betting’s Old Guard Embraces Cutting-Edge Technology
Generally speaking, technological breakthroughs are a young person’s gambit. But that doesn’t mean there aren’t some proverbial old dogs out there who are willing to learn new tricks.
This was abundantly clear when Alan Feldman, a distinguished fellow at UNLV’s International Gaming Institute, moderated an online discussion between US Bookmaking Chairman Vic Salerno and WEBE Gaming CEO John English, two of the more seasoned, well-respected players in the American gambling sector. The chat was one of several sponsored by the International Gaming Standards Association last week.
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Delaware Lottery Selects Rush Street Interactive As Online Gaming Vendor
Rush Street Interactive has been selected as the Delaware State Lottery’s vendor for the state’s online gaming business, according to a joint press release issued on Thursday.
Under the deal, RSI will provide the Delaware Lottery with online gaming services for an initial period of five years. From there, the agreement will be renewable for a series of one-year terms, potentially comprising an additional five years.
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