Circa Sports will be moving into permanent digs in 2025, but the Mint Gaming Hall Kentucky Downs will be where Circa’s Kentucky temporary retail sportsbook will reside until then.
Ready for Football
Circa Sports now has the brick-and-mortar Kentucky sportsbook it wanted, just in time for the college football and NFL seasons. After launching its mobile sports betting app in April, the company was eager to establish a retail presence in the Bluegrass State.
“We will open our Circa Sports Kentucky mobile app first, and then we are going to build a retail sportsbook a bit further down the road. That’s going to happen towards the end of 2024,” Circa Sports CEO Derek Stevens said prior to the mobile launch.
And so, the alliance between Circa Sports and the Mint Gaming Hall Kentucky Downs in Franklin, Kentucky, was born. And we should also note that the sportsbook is now operational and ahead of schedule, just in time for the biggest sports betting season of all—football.
Brick-and-Mortar Magic
The company has plans to move into a permanent location in the summer of 2025. Nevertheless, this temporary location has all the bells and whistles a sports bettor would want, including three manned betting windows, five self-service kiosks, 10 televisions, four digital odds boards, and another kiosk located at the Oasis Side Bar.
“Launching a sportsbook in a new state is a significant milestone for any operator, and we couldn’t think of a better venue than The Mint Gaming Hall. Kentucky’s passion for sports makes it an ideal location, and we’re excited to offer customers a unique betting experience, combining some of the best odds in the industry with top-tier service,” Derek Stevens, CEO of Circa Sports, said.
John Wholihan, marketing director for Mint Gaming Hall, said earlier in August, “Having the agreement with Circa and getting the regulators involved, everything started a few months back. It got done on time, and that’s not a guarantee for every property to have their brick-and-mortar running before football season. We were able to, and it works out for everyone.”
Circa Experiencing Growing Pains
Kentucky’s launch of mobile sports betting began on September 28, 2023, but Circa didn’t arrive on the scene until April 1, 2024. The conventional wisdom is to launch as soon as possible and spend plenty of money wooing early adopters.
However, Circa took a more languid approach to getting its mobile app up and running in the Bluegrass State. The Las Vegas-based gaming outfit led by the man with a big personality, Derek Stevens, has a traditional, old-school bookmaker’s mentality. He does not seem eager to play the same game as the market leaders like FanDuel and DraftKings, which is to try to outspend the competition on marketing campaigns and bonuses.
He has described the retail sportsbooks he owns in Las Vegas as a place where one would find “old-school Las Vegas hospitality, where our guests and oddsmakers interact closely in a friendly and fun environment.”
Stevens has said he is going to run his mobile sportsbooks precisely as his retail shops are run. “What we do differently than others is provide value to the wagering consumer. We don’t limit customers, and we take big bets. We run our own model,” said Stevens.
