Delaware Legalizes Sports Betting, Anticipates Online Launch
Transcript
00:00 (upbeat music)
00:03 - Let's close out with one of the first states
00:05 to legalize sports betting,
00:07 and finally, quietly, legalizing the online portion.
00:11 And that of course is Delaware,
00:13 and you certainly, Matthew, living in the area,
00:15 can speak to this.
00:16 Finally, they get the online going.
00:18 - Craig, Delaware was the first state
00:23 to take a bet outside of Nevada
00:26 after PASPA fell in May of 2018.
00:29 I believe it was June 7th that they took that bet.
00:33 I was at one of the casinos,
00:34 and it was a fun atmosphere.
00:37 I never expected five and a half years later
00:42 that the online sports betting launch would come.
00:45 They were allowed to launch online,
00:47 shortly after that, back in 2018, if they really wanted to.
00:53 Delaware had a lot of reasons for why that may not happen.
00:57 If you remember, Delaware offered parlay cards
01:00 through their lottery for years.
01:02 And the local retailers didn't wanna lose that money.
01:05 They didn't wanna lose the guys
01:07 that were coming in to fill out those parlay cards,
01:08 and they're buying some beef jerky and chips
01:10 on the way out of the store as well.
01:12 And that retail lobbying,
01:15 it was successful for longer than I ever expected it to be.
01:19 Now, we do have an issue here.
01:22 Now, it is BetRivers that is operating this.
01:26 I've been a good Delaware resident.
01:29 I've definitely contributed to some taxes already.
01:32 And it is a good product.
01:34 It looks like a really strong product,
01:36 especially on the casino side,
01:37 which is what BetRivers is known for.
01:40 The problem though is, Craig,
01:42 that there was a study in the legislature
01:45 that just came back after this new BetRivers contract
01:49 was signed, sealed, delivered,
01:51 that said Delaware should not be operating on this model,
01:55 that they're going to make more money
01:58 if they operate on the standard competitive model.
02:01 And so now the legislature is going into 2024
02:06 to consider that they should move to this model,
02:10 and they just signed a long-term deal with BetRivers.
02:14 So I don't know how that turns out.
02:16 I don't know why you would continue with the RFP process
02:20 to offer a single operator structure
02:25 when you know that there is something going on
02:29 in the legislature that's looking at,
02:31 you know, maybe the fact is we shouldn't do that.
02:33 Delawareans haven't had it that hard though.
02:38 When you look at where we are,
02:39 we got Maryland, Pennsylvania, New Jersey,
02:42 it's always easy to find a border
02:44 in a small state like Delaware to cross
02:45 and get your bets down.
02:47 But I'm really interested to see what this looks like.
02:51 Particularly, Delaware had really strong iGaming numbers
02:55 when it came to those COVID months, right?
02:59 And so we saw that there is an appetite for iGaming
03:03 and online activity in Delaware.
03:06 And now we just have to see how much that's going to be.
03:08 Look, it's never going to be one of the biggest states,
03:11 right?
03:12 I mean, we got about a million people.
03:14 Maybe we'll get a couple of whales
03:15 that will play some big bets
03:17 when they come down here to, you know,
03:19 vacation at our beautiful beaches.
03:21 But outside of that,
03:22 we'll always be one of the smaller states.
03:24 But it's just the fact that it took five and a half years,
03:27 Greg, that's far too long to go online.
03:30 (upbeat music)
03:33 (bells chiming)