The District’s beleaguered sports betting app, GambetDC, will see its tenure in the nation’s capital come to a close in July. Plans are to replace it with FanDuel but one lawmaker has a different solution that would allow multiple sportsbooks to operate in the market.
End of an Error
Greek gaming company, Intralot, received a no-bid contract to operate a sports betting app in the District of Columbia five years ago. The lack of competition, coupled with ineffectual management and technology, caused a firestorm of criticism.
Despite scores of successful mobile sports betting launches around the nation, the bureaucrats in Washington believed they could do it better than the professionals and built their own sports betting platform. That turned out to be an unmitigated disaster replete with technical glitches and poor betting odds for consumers.
But GambetDC’s reign is over in D.C.’s sports betting market and it was rumored that FanDuel would become the sole operator in the market. In a January council hearing, Frank Suarez, head of the D.C. Office of Lottery and Gaming (OLG), said, “We want a bigger brand. We want something that players are used to and highly satisfied with, which is why we’re looking to make the change.”
Mixed Reactions
Director Suarez also wrote, “OLG and Intralot have evaluated the current platform and believe that FanDuel and its industry-leading platform will perform better within the highly competitive DMV region.”
However, not everyone was pleased with the OLG’s late solution to a lingering problem.
Washington D.C. council member, Kenyan McDuffie, stated, “I was incredulous when I learned that OLG waited until just recently, less than six months before contract end, to bring in a new platform operator. They’ve known this contract was expiring in July of 2024. Why didn’t they issue a new procurement that would have been in place at the contract end? It was a lazy move and an attempt to force this Council to settle for the status quo.”
A Different Approach
Speaking of council member Kenyan McDuffie, he believes competition manifests the best product for the consumer. Not exactly a novel idea but one that was roundly dismissed in the District’s no-bid sports betting contract with Intralot.
As the D.C. sports betting landscape is presently constituted, BetMGM (Nationals Park), Caesars Sportsbook (Capital One Arena), and FanDuel (Audi Field) all have retail sportsbooks located inside those D.C. facilities. BetMGM and Caesars have a limited mobile reach that extends just two blocks from their brick-and-mortar sportsbooks.
McDuffie’s proposal would mandate that any sportsbook entering the market other than the three above would need to partner with a sports team located in the D.C. area. McDuffie would like to open the market up to several competitors but said it wouldn’t be fair to those already invested in the market.
“That approach could have worked better if we were starting off that way,” McDuffie said. “But after I spoke with operators and our local franchises about the issues, it became clear that would be very disruptive and harmful to the Class A and B operators who already invested in retail sportsbooks in Downtown, Navy Yard, Buzzard Point, and other locations throughout the District. We need more competition in sports wagering platforms and this bill allows for that to happen.”
OddsTrader will continue to monitor this story and update our readers as events unfold.
