Using the first payment by a casino for a gaming license in sports betting, the Hollywood Casino at Charles Town Races in West Virginia has received a sports betting license. This signals West Virginia’s entry into the sports betting market, joining Delaware, Nevada, and New Jersey. While this is the first license granted within the Mountaineer State, it is sure to become followed by other cities in West Virginia.
Hollywood Casino at Charles Town Races has been in operation as a racetrack since the 1930s and has been offering different types of horse racing because then. The track, once owned by a racing club, was sold to a gaming corporation in the early 2000s. The casino offers a 150-room hotel and also the track has a full racing schedule nine months from the year, also because the $100,000 purse Breeder’s Classic. The casino portion from the track has three,000 slot machines, also as dozens of tables for games.
The casino paid $100,000 for the license, which will be great for five years. The casino estimates that the timeline for sports betting begins the week of Aug. 27. That week will consist of practice games to create certain that all parts of the sports betting franchise are prepared to receive guests. The planned opening to the public will probably be Labor Day holiday weekend. Sports bets will not be taken all over the casino, but rather in the Skybox Sports Bar, that will shed its slot machines and gain plenty of new TVs.
Hollywood Casino is partnering with William Hill, which runs sportsbooks mainly within the United kingdom but additionally in other countries as well, to run the sportsbook at the racetrack. William Hill, which currently runs a sportsbook in New Jersey at an Atlantic City casino, is in direct competition with Betfair, another British company, as well as two U.S. fantasy sports businesses; DraftKings and FanDuel. William Hill has established a sizable footprint in the United states of america in an early bid to grab as numerous casinos as possible. The company has a sportsbook company in Nevada, that is rated the No. 1 general sportsbook within the state, and has become the danger assessor for the state of Delaware, assisting it to regulate its new sportsbook franchises. The business also plans to launch a sportsbook by the time the NFL begins play in earnest in September.
Competition in the Future
Currently, Hollywood Casino has no competition for sports betting in the area, or even in states which are close to Charles Town, which is within the state’s Eastern Panhandle. West Virginia’s other casinos – Mountaineer in Chester; Wheeling Island Mardi Gras Casino in Nitro; and the Greenbriar’s Casino Club – ought to have their licenses by next month and start welcoming sports betting to compete with the Charles Town casino.
Till this previous Might, there had been only four states that had been permitted to have sports gaming. However, only Nevada was allowed to possess single-sports betting. The other three states – Delaware, Montana, and Oregon – had been allowed to possess parlay betting only, which meant that people who wanted to gamble had to either bet on numerous game days for the same group or bet on multiple games on the same day.
Nevertheless, the U.S. Supreme Court overturned the 1992 Expert and Amateur Sports Protection Act (PASPA) in May, and that indicates states have the right to select for themselves whether or not they want sports gaming. Specialists believe that a minimum of three other states will have sports gaming in place by the finish from the year.