Sports bettors in Pennsylvania are about to have three sports books to choose from as two more casinos, namely Rivers and SugarHouse casinos, are about to go live with their own sports betting offerings. Both casinos are set to begin their test periods on Thursday, December 13 – if this goes well, the Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board will then permit them to start regular sports betting on Saturday, December 15.
The Pittsburgh-based Rivers Casino announced via its official Twitter account that the new Rivers Sportsbook would be opened to the public on Thursday for a 2-day introductory period that will be supervised by the state gaming control board. The sportsbook will remain open until midnight before reopening at noon on Friday after which it will remain open until 10 pm. SugarHouse casino which is based in Philadelphia will also be subject to the same limited hours and access for the first two days. This requirement by the Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board is meant to ensure that both sports books are up to standard in terms of operations and staff.
Both SugarHouse and Rivers received their sports betting licenses from the Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board at the end of October and are owned by the same company – Rush Street Gaming. The wagering technology that will be utilized by both companies is going to be provided by the Kambi and Rush Street Interactive partnership – this also received approval from the gaming control board toward the end of November 2018.
The two new entrants into the Keystone State’s sports betting scene are certainly going to disrupt the monopoly that was enjoyed by Penn National Gaming’s Hollywood Casino at Penn National Race Course which has been operating for close to a month now – the William Hill-powered sports books also went through a testing period before being given the green light to proceed with full operations by the gaming control board in mid-November.
Appealing to Younger Crowds
Even though the state gambling regulator and Hollywood Casino have not revealed a lot of information pertaining to how the state’s first sportsbook is fairing, they have said that the sports betting facility has been drawing a more youthful crowd. This is great news for the casinos which have had to deal with an aging audience and relatively flat revenues.
Younger crowds not only assure the casino operators of a new customer base but also allows them to experiment with new offerings meant to appeal to even more members of this younger crowd of games. Moreover, most of the young bettors said that they were already placing bets before the launch of the state-approved casino – the legal sportsbook was now a better option since it offered them way more options when compared to the illegal bookmakers. With more sportsbooks set to go live in the next few days, the gamers should have even more options.