US sports betting boom intensifies competition for Nevada

It’s about casino operators, strategic alliances, broadcast and podcast partners, sports teams, sports leagues, stadiums, technology and being the official “fill-in-the-blank” of a gaming company. Every state is different.

There are different rules and regulations, a wide array of tax rates and a variety of venue in commercial casinos, tribal casinos, lotteries, card rooms and horse and dog tracks.

It’s a requirement to have a retail outlet in some states or being allowed to be exclusively online in others. It’s signing up for a mobile app in person, as they require in Nevada, or submitting a form online, as they do in New Jersey.

And it’s constantly evolving. If you haven’t been paying attention to the sports-betting industry lately, things have been changing as rapidly as a football game’s outcome after a successful Hail Mary.

Just last week alone, two unrelated events occurred that could eventually have an effect on sports wagering in Nevada.

Arizona’s House of Representatives passed a sports betting legalization bill in a bipartisan vote, advancing it to the state Senate.

In Nevada, the state’s Gaming Control Board unanimously recommended allowing Caesars Entertainment Inc. to acquire William Hill U.S., the state’s largest bookmaking operation with more than 120 outlets, in a move that could help transform Caesars into a sports-betting powerhouse nationwide. The Nevada Gaming Commission will make a final decision on that on March 18.

Even Chris Grove, managing director of sports and emerging verticals for Eilers & Krejcik Gaming, a research company, admits that it’s getting harder and harder to keep up with all the moves companies are making in the industry as it closes in on the three-year anniversary of the dawn of legalized sports betting in the United States in May.

Eilers & Krejcik tracks the industry and reported last month that 26 states now offer legal sports betting, and that includes five in which betting has been authorized, but is not yet operational.

The company estimates that 45 percent of the adult U.S. population lives in a state where sports betting is legal. And 31 bills on sports betting are pending nationwide.

Market growth
Sports betting revenue in the United States grew from $920 million in 2019 to $1.57 billion in 2020 and is projected to grow to $5.8 billion by 2023.
Much of that growth has been fueled by potential stakeholders seeking a piece of the action. And that growth, Grove said, may become harder to sustain as lawmakers debate the merits of sports betting in their respective states.