Tiverton Casino Hotel, one of two casinos in Rhode Island, now offers sports betting like its sister casino, Twin River Casino in Lincoln, which began offering the service shortly after Thanksgiving.
The state, whose third largest source of revenue is gaming, expects to collect $11.5 million taxes off sports betting annually. The towns of Tiverton and Lincoln will be paid one payment of $100,000.
Wagers can range from $2 up to $10,000.
Rhode Island is now the eighth state to take sports betting. States began lining up to legalize sports betting shortly after the U.S. Supreme Court lifted the federal ban in May.
State officials had hoped to have sports betting at the two casinos by October, after the legislature legalized it over the summer. Governor Gina Raimondo had included $23 million from sports betting in her budget for the new fiscal year. But various roadblocks prevented the implementation until now.
One was the fact that only IGT bid to partner with the state in operating the service through the state lottery. The betting is backed by William Hicks.
Distribution of the money collected is as follows: Rhode Island gets 51 percent; IGT gets 32 percent with the casino collecting 17 percent.
Because implementation didn’t happen on schedule, the state wasn’t able to benefit from as long an NFL season, or from the World Series.
Currently only the casinos offer sports betting, although mobile platforms will be integrated into the system beginning next year.
The Twin River casino in Lincoln plans to open a new sports betting lounge with about 100 TV screens before the end of the year, according to spokesman Patti Doyle. She described the service: “It will be a Las Vegas style sports book. You can place bets on the NBA, the NFL, major league baseball and NCAA college games.”
Tiverton will have 11 TV screens showing the games, with two terminals where patrons can place wagers.
Betters are able to take odds, make a straight bet or bet against the spread. Betting is not allowed on Rhode Island teams.
Boston Red Sox president and CEO Sam Kennedy is excited that fans in Rhode Island will be able to bet on his team, and hopes that this will be extended to other states in New England.
He told the Boston Herald, “Yes, there will be a positive revenue impact for the team – how much I don’t know – but that is absolutely secondary in my opinion to the (increased) engagement, to people following, paying attention, being engaged with the Boston Red Sox, Patriots, Bruins and Celtics as a result of betting on that sport and betting on in-game activities.”
Besides the Twin Rivers Casino and Tiverton, Kennedy is hoping that the MGM Springfield will eventually offer something similar. Or that the Everett Encore Boston Harbor, the biggest fish in the New England puddle, will do the same when it opens next year.
Rhode Island doesn’t offer something that Kennedy clearly would like to see, an “integrity fee,” something that Major League Baseball and other leagues have pressed for from state’s legalizing sports book, but which they haven’t been too successful with so far.
He sees sports book as a way to increase fan engagement, by making them aware of every game that is being played.
“It’s more overall interest in watching games, being connected to the game,” said Kenney. “What’s going to happen between a pitcher a batter at this very moment, what will this outcome be – you can see in the future where that all can happen very fast in real time. If there’s a game that’s 10-1 in the seventh inning, people might tune out but the thought is now that you’ll stay in, watching, because you’re engaging in betting on the outcome of what may happen.”
