Although entertaining and fun, the casino industry began to expand its focus to increase revenues. Naturally, the industry turned its attention to the technological front by incorporating various popular games online.
With multiple regulations, policies, and displays on mobile devices, an online casino industry was born to generate additional profits for gambling businesses.
However, there is always room for improvement and more revenue, both online and land-based casinos throughout the United States.
One of the greatest target points in gambling is sports, as people can gamble on their favorite horse or football team. Yet the Supreme Court had made sports betting illegal outside the state of Nevada and a handful of other venues.
In May of 2018, after almost three decades, the Supreme Court lifted the ban and made bookmaking legal with the newly-introduced law named PASPA, or the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act.
The major reason behind the legal branch’s change of heart is the realization that the black market has been profiting in over $150 billion in illegal bets every year.
As the law crossed over to the other side, multiple states have jumped onto the opportunity of permitting sports betting in their casinos, including New Jersey, Connecticut, Mississippi, Delaware, and others.
Not only the states can broaden the entertainment on their casino floors, but they can seriously profit from these new additions.
CBS Sports reports that New Jersey, for example, has taken more than $1 billion in wagers in the Sportsbooks in less than seven months after the decriminalization of sports betting.
Multiple casinos, such as MGM and Caesars Palace located in the gambling city of Las Vegas, have been profiting majorly with the inclusion of sports betting.
In fact, Adrian Sireca, partner of OnlineCasinoGems claims that “Caesar’s Palace is one of the best casinos that adapted quickly to the online world and its benefits for the gambling industry. Even though more and more states have been embracing sports betting on land-based casinos, only New Jersey, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Iowa, and Nevada have implemented the new regulation into the tech world.”
In total, New Jersey accumulated $3.2 billion in the first year of the sports betting legalization, whereas $2.4 billion came from mobile devices and the Internet alone.
Hence, combining the forces of sports betting and the Internet would revise the overall casino industry and generate even more revenue than the new casinos opening in the regions of New Jersey and Nevada.
Regulators estimate that half of the sports bets made at the Nevada casinos were done online. Arkansas and Mississippi do not have mobile sports betting but are planning to implement the entertainment only in the casinos.
While the Internet is not involved, the legalization of sports betting has affected Mississippi particularly. As the poorest state in America, Mississippi reported a gambling revenue of $4 billion primarily due to the inclusion of sports betting.
Since the Supreme Court lifted the ban on sports betting in the summer of 2018, plenty has changed in a single year.
For example, Nevada experienced two consecutive summer months where gambling revenues surpassed the $1 billion-dollar mark partially due to the new countrywide regulation.
Although Tennessee does not have land-based casinos, it will be the first state to try an online-only sports betting system.
With all of these changes in government policies and the opportunity to explore sports betting, a large number of deals have been circulating among gambling companies specifically for online expansion.
DraftKings Inc., a company focused more on fantasy-sports and can be a part of the new culture of sports betting, has signed a deal with Caesars Entertainment Corp. where the former will have access to casinos in 13 states in exchange for promotion and equity.
Moreover, MGM Resorts International has publicly partnered with Boyd Gaming Corp in order to expand mobile and online gaming across the 15 states in which the two companies are licensed.
Delaware and New Jersey, in particular, have been seeing success in their gambling revenues due to the decriminalization of sports betting, as the states met their sports betting tax revenue expectations.
As soon as the Supreme Court lifted the sports betting ban, Delaware and New Jersey made huge progress in their gambling revenues within half a year.
By December 2018, Delaware sports betting operators generated over $9 million in revenue, while New Jersey reached $94 million. Since the density of the Delaware population is much smaller compared to New Jersey, the difference in revenue is more or less proportional.
Sports betting on mobile devices is the prime factor of generating high gambling revenues, and New Jersey is one of the few states that permits the usage of online sports betting.
People from neighboring states travel to New Jersey to place sports bets on their mobile devices; in fact, 44% of all New Jersey sports betting mobile traffic comes within two miles of state borders.
The change in governmental policy regarding sports betting has become an important factor in achieving higher goals within the casino industry.
While land-based casinos are profiting from this new inclusion, the online casino industry is becoming a larger empire with sports betting on the table.
Plenty of predictions on the outcomes of the online market a year after the Supreme Court’s decision on sports betting arose to the public, showing overall positive signs for the online casino business.
Various powerful companies, either involved in gambling or not, have realized the potentiality of sports betting online. Numerous deals have been constructed and planned between companies in order to reap in the benefits.
Perhaps the best part is that people will be able to enjoy sports betting legally, not to mention corporations can profit without any illegal activities. The Supreme Court’s recognition of the illegal market for sports betting has opened doors for multiple casinos both land-based and online.
With the amount of sports fans throughout the world, sports betting is definitely an industry that will last forever. The future is promising and online casinos and betting websites keep coming up with creative ways to make gamblers’ experience extremely interactive.