GambetDC? Again?
Seems they still haven’t figured out how to solve their problems. Even if they overcome issues, the sportsbook that controls online betting in the nation’s capital has left such a bad taste, some folks won’t give them another chance to make it right.
Not when there are more than accommodating options in Virginia, which offered online wagers early in 2021. Just ask Steve Cimino.
A resident in Northeast Washington, Cimino likes to gamble. He also does not own a car, not a necessity for those living and working in the city. His mode of transportation is a bicycle and on Saturdays he pedals into Arlington, Virginia just across the Potomac, pulls off to the bike path, and, using his phone, bets. Then he pedals back home, according to the Washington Post.
“I can get exercise, and I can place bets,” Cimino told his wife. “Everybody wins.”
Virginia offers an easier experience, one more enjoyable and oftentimes, with better odds.
“On a Sunday, it’s [second] nature now to drive over the line and pop back over in time for the 1 o’clock games,” said Mike Callow, a radio producer who works in Northwest Washington. Callow often stops in empty parking lots just over the Virginia state line to place his bets.
The D.C. Council awarded Intralot a $215 million, no-bid contract, and GambetDC was born in May 2020.
Most jurisdictions with mobile betting have big-name operators, sometimes licensing many of them: FanDuel, DraftKings, BetMGM, Caesars, you get the picture.
In the coming weeks, Washingtonians will have the choice of Maryland to add to their itinerary. The state could license as many as 10 operators.
GambetDC was projected to produce $20 million annually for the district, but that seems laughable. Blame the pandemic for some of that. The first year of operation cost the District $4 million, according to a report from the Lottery in March 2022. Fiscal 2022 proved much better.
Total money bet rose 38 percent and the number of bets placed jumped 59 percent, resulting in about $2.6 million to the District, according to Melissa Davis, chief of communications for the city’s Office of Lottery and Gaming.
For Callow, it doesn’t matter. “The app was garbage—it’s still garbage—and the actual lines? Oh, my gosh, I took one look at it and said, ‘Nope, I am not placing bets on this thing,’ ” he said.
The Intralot contract ends in 2024. D.C. Councilmember Elissa Silverman introduced legislation that ends the contract at its conclusion and opens the process up.
“We need to turn the page on this embarrassing episode,” Silverman said in a statement. “Residents deserve an online app that works, taxpayers deserve a program that brings in money for the District, and we all deserve a system where we don’t hand huge contracts to a preferred company and its subcontractors without even looking at the competition.”
