This week’s casino news starts off with a pair of key stories coming out of the state of New York. They’re new to online sports betting but they’re quickly becoming the talk of the town.
New York Sees $2 Billion In Online Action
New York State is off to a ridiculously impressive start when it comes to online sports betting. In just the first 30 days of its legalization, the state welcomed almost $2 billion in bets. In total, the state saw $138 million of that money be turned into revenue. That’s exactly what all of the operators (and the state) was hoping for when they legalized online sports betting.
Mobile sports betting was a major contributor to this success, as expected. Many players prefer to bet right off their phones rather than a laptop or desktop. Since action began in New York back on January 8th, the state has brought in $1.98 billion of online wagers in the first 30 days of that launch.
Even though it is very early on in its life cycle, assembly member J. Gary Pretlow already came out and said that New York is soon to be known as the sports betting capital of the world. He’s long been one of the proponents to get legal, online sports betting in the state. His views could become true as 1.76 million unique players accounts were created and used already in New York. That number will continue to rise – especially with a new cohort of young people becoming of gambling age each and every year.
New York Sportsbooks Partners With Buffalo Sabres
Sticking with the New York betting scene, the Buffalo Sabres are jumping into an exclusive partnership with the sports betting giant FanDuel. FanDuel will now be known as the official sports betting partner of the organization for at least the next couple of years. They will also be able to use exclusive branding and other promotions during all Sabres broadcasts. FanDuel also gets the right to utilize the Sabres logos and marks for marketing and in-arena signage throughout all of Buffalo’s home games that they will play. Although the Sabres are struggling right now – and have been for many years – it’s still a great marketing opportunity for FanDuel.
As mentioned, sports betting in the state of New York is still relatively new. Expect many more professional teams of all sorts to strike deals with the various books.
Resorts World Las Vegas Off To Slow Start
Despite being the most anticipated resort to come into Las Vegas in years, the payoff is taking a bit longer to achieve than originally expected. It cost a total of $4.3 billion to fund and build Resorts World Las Vegas, easily making it the most expensive property on the Las Vegas Strip. Recent numbers show that the property brought in $170 million worth of revenue during the fourth quarter of the year, which is not what they were hoping for. These numbers are down from their sales of $175 million that they earned in the third quarter.
Thrilled to have been a part of your birthday celebration! ✨ #samasghari @britneyspears https://t.co/ZzAA2El4se
— Resorts World Las Vegas (@ResortsWorldLV) March 7, 2022
Investors of the property have started to get a little restless. The initial results are mixed all around as there hasn’t been a huge buzz that Resorts is the place to be. However, nobody is worried yet as it was made clear that analysts didn’t expect the resort to really get ramped up until 2024.
Unfortunately, Resorts World opened up at a poor time with the COVID-19 pandemic raging on. They launched right in the middle of it and then other variants of the disease like omicron started to show up. Restrictions in the state have also played a part in the property just not receiving as much revenue as expected. Luckily, good news may be on the horizon for them. The indoor mask mandate was just lifted in Nevada a month ago.
