For Lou Jacobs, the COVID-19 pandemic really hit home on March 11, 2020, as he watched an NBA game between Oklahoma City and Utah be cancelled.
“I remember thinking, oh boy, my life just changed,” said Jacobs, the co-CEO and co-founder of Delaware North, a global food service and hospitality company that operates gambling properties. “We took a company with 55,000 employees and $4 billion in sales and just shut it down. How do you anticipate something like that in your career? We really had to rethink everything.”
Jacobs spoke Wednesday at a virtual panel discussion, “View From the Top: A CEO Discussion on Leadership & Future of Gaming,” at the Global Gaming Expo.
Bill Lance, Secretary of Commerce, Chickasaw Nation, and Jason Robins, CEO of DraftKings, also were on the panel moderated by MSNBC’s Contessa Brewer.
While the pandemic has hurt bottom lines across the gaming industry, Jacobs, Lance and Robins all expressed cautious optimism about long-term growth. Robins in particular hopes for increased branding opportunities in light of DraftKings’ September announcement that basketball legend Michael Jordan was joining the company as an investor and advisor.
“Michael Jordan may be a great athlete, but I think he’s potentially an even more genius businessman,” Robins said. “The branding and the ability to just entertain and know how to reach a broad array of consumers is unprecedented… I think having that kind of intellect and insight around the table will be invaluable to us.”
Robins also announced that DraftKings reached a deal to sponsor the University of Nevada Las Vegas’ center for gaming innovation, rebranding it as the DraftKings Gaming Innovation Studios, in addition to a previously announced plan to open a 300-person office in Las Vegas.
Lance said efforts have been focused on maintaining the health of the members the Chickasaw Nation. But even after the pandemic forced the closure of the tribe’s land-based casinos, there are some positive signs.
“We’ve been pretty fortunate,” Lance said. “We were shut down for 71 days and I don’t have to tell you how financially devastating that was to our tribe. But regionally the market’s been pretty strong, I think because there’s less travel and air travel. Nobody’s going to conferences and we’ve seen pretty healthy and strong markets at our bricks-and-mortars.”
Lance added that the Chickasaw Nation is looking at touchless payment technologies and expanding the use of smart phones as gaming devices while on tribal properties as possible additions to the consumer gaming experiences.
Jacobs said that because people have been frustrated by restrictions put in place by states due to the pandemic, the level of pent-up demand by consumers at Delaware North properties has “exceeded any expectations” the company anticipated. “The demand is at levels that were unthinkable prior to this,” Jacob said.
Jacobs also think that igaming, sports betting and mobile betting options were trending before the pandemic and are now more attractive options. But he’s not sure that every new gaming option will be universally embraced.
“I’ve been in this business now for 35 years,” Jacobs said. “And I have an appreciation that what happens in Tallahassee is not the same as what happens in Columbus (Ohio) or Little Rock. These things happen very regionally. It’s a state house by state house issue, a localized issue, … You can’t separate these jurisdictions from their history, and it’s an evolving history, so you really need to take it state by state, and with the COVID issue region by region within states.”
