Mobile wagering is credited as the primary reason Nevada’s sports betting revenues have grown by nearly 23 percent since 2013.
It might have even more importance in New Jersey.
With more than 100 miles separating Atlantic City’s casinos from northern New Jersey’s racetracks, there is much space between betting windows.
Mobile sports wagering – the ability to bet on a game outside of a traditional casino by using an application on a smart phone or tablet device – should easily fill the void.
Someone might want to share this information with Mississippi at some point.
The Magnolia State will launch sports betting on July 20, with mobile wagering to follow later. However, Mississippi’s current mobile wagering regulations prohibit gamblers from placing a sports bet anywhere outside a casino.
For example, even if you open a mobile wagering account with Beau Rivage, you won’t be able to place a sports bet with your iPhone while taking in a Biloxi Shuckers minor league baseball game at MGM Park, located just across Beach Boulevard. It’s not even clear if you can bet while relaxing at the hotel’s pool, or anywhere else outside the casino walls.
“Just allowing mobile on the properties isn’t that exciting,” said one insider.
Last year in Nevada, sports books took in $4.87 billion in total wagers and collected $248.8 million in revenue on those bets, both records.
Michael Lawton, senior research analyst for the Nevada Gaming Control Board, told LegalSportsReport.com in January that nearly every major casino and sportsbook in Las Vegas now has a mobile sports betting application.
“The growth has been phenomenal, and a lot of it’s attributable to personal device wagering, the ability to bet on sports through your phone, the fact that there’s a wide variety of wagers you can make on in-play wagering,” Lawton said.
Height Capital Markets, in a research report, estimated gaming revenue from legal sports betting could reach $950 million nationwide, based on 16 new states adding the activity. Already, Delaware and New Jersey have launched, and sportsbooks at Mississippi casinos are on the horizon. West Virginia, Pennsylvania and Rhode Island could see legal sports wagering in time for football season.
Analyst Stefanie Miller, writing in the Height report, estimates 23 states will have legal sports betting by 2023.
However, lack of mobile sports wagering is one factor that will slow the revenue stream, she said, along with slow adoption rates and high taxation rates.
“We think in five years sports betting gross gaming revenue can total upwards of $5 billion, or roughly 6.5 percent of projected annual non-sports gross gaming revenue in the U.S.,” Miller wrote.
Those are some lofty projections.
New Jersey – which took its first legal sports wagers on June 14 at Borgata in Atlantic City and Monmouth Park Racetrack – will allow sportsbooks to apply for mobile wagering with the Division of Gaming Enforcement next month. Operators hope to have the applications available by football season.
On Thursday, William Hill US, which operates the sportsbook at Monmouth Park, will open a temporary sportsbook in conjunction with the official unveiling of the new Ocean Casino Resort on the Boardwalk. William Hill CEO Joe Asher said the company will operate a 7,500 square foot sports book in the center of Ocean’s gaming floor.
Mobile wagering in New Jersey could emulate Nevada. A customer must come into the casino to open the account and can only cash out at the property. The mobile app can be used to place wagers anywhere in the state but shuts off betting once the devices leave the state’s borders.
In Nevada, William Hill has kiosks in taverns where customers can re-load their mobile wagering accounts through a credit card, so the sports betting action doesn’t slow down. It’s too early in the game to tell if New Jersey will have a similar concept.
Meanwhile, William Hill will have at least one sportsbook location in Mississippi, although the signed agreement has not yet been announced. Like New Jersey, there are plenty of miles between the state’s casino strongholds: Tunica and the Gulf Coast are separated by nearly six hours’ drive time.
The other factor is the mobile app itself. According to current sports betting regulations, a player will need a mobile app for each state where they wish to wager, even if the sportsbook operator is the same.
MGM Resorts International operates both Borgata and Beau Rivage. The company is hopeful sports betting will come to Maryland – home to MGM National Harbor – and Massachusetts, where the $960 MGM Springfield opens in August. Both states could be exploring sports betting options in the next two years.
You can add New York into the mix, where MGM is acquiring the Empire Casino and Yonkers Raceway, located just 15 miles north of Times Square. The company could be in the middle of a new sports gambling bonanza.
And you can bet mobile sports wagering will have a piece of the action.
Howard Stutz is the executive editor of CDC Gaming. He can be reached at hstutz@cdcgamingreports.com. Follow @howardstutz on Twitter.
