Until last summer, Nevada was the only state with legal single-game sports wagering in the U.S. Perhaps fittingly, Las Vegas last year wound up providing a case study for the co-existence of sports gambling and a professional sports franchise.
The National Hockey League’s Vegas Golden Knights – the city’s first franchise from one of the four major professional sports leagues – began its inaugural season in October 2017. Playing in the glimmering new 18,000-seat T-Mobile Arena built by MGM Resorts International, one of the gaming industry’s premier companies, the team’s games took place on the Las Vegas Strip in the backyard of two mega-resorts.
It didn’t take long for legal sports betting to become part of the story.
At the beginning of the season, the expansion Golden Knights were 500-to-1 odds to win the Stanley Cup. It was a novelty wager for the new fan base. So the Knights’ improbable run to the Cup Finals – which ended in a five-game loss to the Washington Capitals – had sportsbook operators sweating out some potentially large payouts.
The mutual interest was not lost on NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman.
Gary Bettman
“The Vegas Golden Knights provided another avenue for us to cultivate relationships with operators, and to see firsthand the engagement that sports betting can create with the sport of hockey,” Bettman said in a statement provided by league.
Bettman will be one of several high-level sports, broadcasting and gaming industry leaders who will take part in a sports betting executive summit sponsored by the American Gaming Association at the MGM National Harbor resort in Maryland this week.
The AGA is touting the invitation-only conference as a dialogue within the sports betting ecosystem on the most pressing topics related to the expansion of legal, regulated sports betting in the U.S.
A new landscape
In the 10 months since the U.S. Supreme Court ended a federal ban on legal sports betting outside Nevada, the landscape has expanded, with seven states – Delaware, New Jersey, Mississippi, West Virginia, Rhode Island, Pennsylvania and New Mexico – now allowing casinos and racetracks to offer sports betting facilities.
Multi-year marketing and sponsorship agreements, once viewed as sacrilegious, have been signed between major casino operators and individual casinos with professional sports leagues and individual franchises.
Sara Slane
AGA Senior Vice President of Public Affairs Sara Slane said the day-and-a-half-long Maryland conference allows the participants in the sports betting space to take a breath and assess the scene as the one-year anniversary of the repeal of the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act nears.
“This event serves as a hub for stakeholders to look at what’s taken place, and the most productive way to move forward,” Slane said. “There will be thought sharing from the operators, the media side and the sports side. We’ll hear some very different viewpoints.”
The AGA tracks sports betting legalization activities in the U.S. Oregon, Arkansas and Washington D.C. have voted to legalize or authorize sports betting but have yet to begin operations. Some 15 other states have either active or pre-filed legislation to legalize sports betting.
Slane said the conference will discuss “the difficulty in getting legislation passed.”
In addition to Bettman, the NHL commissioner since 1993, participants include a pair of top-level executives from major sports leagues: Jeff Wilpon, chief operating officer of the New York Mets and the owner of the New York Excelsior eSports team, and Ted Leonsis, chairman, majority owner, and CEO of Monumental Sports & Entertainment, which owns the Washington Wizards and the Washington Capitals.
Gaming industry representatives slated to attend include state regulatory officials, MGM Resorts Chairman and CEO Jim Murren, William Hill US CEO Joe Asher, and DraftKings CEO Jason Robins.
“The idea is to have a good representation of C-level stakeholders to evaluate where we are at,” Slane said. “We expect to see more alignment and more deals.”
Washington D.C. is still figuring out the regulations and mechanisms covering the activity. Leonsis, whose company also owns the Capital One Arena in downtown Washington D.C., has invested in DraftKings and has said he would like to open a sportsbook at the facility.
NHL at the forefront
Bettman said the NHL has seen the opportunity sports betting affords. In addition to Las Vegas, legal sports betting is now taking place in other cities where the league has franchises, including Pittsburgh and Philadelphia.
In January – during the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas – the NHL tested a puck and player tracking technology during two Golden Knights’ games with the New York Rangers and San Jose Sharks.
The league has a goal of utilizing the data produced by the equipment in game broadcasts, virtual/augmented reality experiences – and for sports betting.
“The new sports betting landscape presents a unique opportunity for the NHL, especially as it relates to fan engagement and utilizing technology and data that are proprietary to our league,” Bettman said. “Over the past 18 months, we have spent a lot of time with gaming operators, with the support of the American Gaming Association. We quickly determined that the most sensible approach would be to work directly with the industry. Our approach is to continue to be progressive and innovative.”
Howard Stutz is the executive editor of CDC Gaming Reports. He can be reached at hstutz@cdcgamingreports.com. Follow @howardstutz on Twitter.
