Sports betting has been legal in the state of New York for the past few years. However, the industry has been limited to upstate land-based casinos offering retail sportsbooks only. Early in 2021, there was a strong push to bring legal online sports betting to the entire state of New York.
Those legislative efforts were successful to set the stage for expansion. Through an extensive regulatory process, nine different mobile sportsbook operators were approved to enter the state.
The approval process identified two separate groups of US-based operators as successful bidders. Caesars Sportsbook was part of one of those groups along with Resorts World, PointsBet, WynnBET and Rush Street Interactive. The primary applicant of that group was Kambi.
With the approvals handed down later in the year, the rush to launch in early 2022 was officially underway. The big target on everyone’s calendar was Sunday, Feb. 13. This also happens to be the same date as this year’s NFL Super Bowl LVI.
Caesars Sportsbook has already taken the lead in New York through a landmark partnership with Madison Square Garden.
In November of last year, Caesars Entertainment forged an agreement with both Madison Square Garden Sports Corp. and Madison Square Garden Entertainment Corp. as co-owners of this iconic sports arena.
As a result of that deal, Caesars Sportsbook is recognized as an Official Sports Betting Partner of Madison Square Garden. This also includes the NBA’s New York Knicks and the NHL’s New York Rangers as two more iconic sports entities in the New York City area.
As an official partner with the arena, area teams and MSG Entertainment, Caesars already has a major leg up on the competition ahead of its official launch. Competition for market share in New York will be fierce given the overall potential for legal mobile sports betting in this state.
As one of the first mobile sportsbook operators to go live in this market, this will provide a huge advantage in Caesars’ new customer acquisition efforts.
A key tie-in with Madison Square Garden includes hospitality space in the venue. Caesars Reward members using the Caesars Sportsbook mobile app will be able to access this space for all Knicks and Rangers home games as well as select events throughout the year.
Caesars Entertainment has made a major commitment to legal sports betting in the US market. This started last year with the acquisition of UK-based sportsbook operator William Hill.
Through Caesars Interactive, the company launched its plan to rebrand all of William Hill’s US operations as Caesars Sportsbook.
Quickly growing to become a major player in the US industry along with FanDuel, DraftKings and BetMGM, the rebranded Caesars Sportsbook remains in excellent position to garner its fair share of the legal New York online sports betting market.