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With Joe Biden, by most accounts, poised to move into the White House in less than two months, it’s reasonable to wonder: What will he do for online gambling?
True, Donald Trump continues to fight his election loss in the courts. Betting exchanges still give him about a 10% chance of holding on to power. Those odds get longer every day, however, and few with knowledge of the situation think it’s likely that his team will find a way to overturn the result.
Biden hasn’t said much publicly about online poker or casinos. He did, however, tell a Las Vegas audience during his campaign that he “doesn’t support adding unnecessary restrictions to the gaming industry as the Trump administration has.”
That said, politicians of all stripes beat around the bush a lot. Sometimes it’s easier to predict what they’ll do based on who they take money from rather than what they say.
Biden’s campaign disclosed a list of 817 “bundlers,” meaning high-profile figures who organize and collect donations on behalf of a candidate. Notable among Biden’s bundlers are Neil Bluhm and his daughter Meredith. Bluhm is the chairman of Rush Street Gaming, which operates land-based casinos in the US and is affiliated with Rush Street Interactive for online gambling via the BetRivers brand.
Gambling industry figures vary widely on online issues
On the surface, it seems like it should be a good thing if Bluhm has Biden’s ear. However, online gambling is as contentious within the casino industry as it is with politicians and the general public.
For instance, it was a widespread misconception in the online poker world back in 2016 that Trump, having dabbled in the casino industry himself, would be good for the progress of online gambling. Nothing could have been further from the truth.
In both 2016 and 2020, a major donor to the Trump campaign was Sheldon Adelson. Online gambling has perhaps no greater foes in the US than Adelson and his Coalition to Stop Internet Gambling (CSIG).
The thing about online gambling is that it’s disruptive to the casino industry. It doesn’t directly cannibalize retail gambling revenues, as some have claimed. However, it does change a lot of the business dynamics, such as customer acquisition strategies. It also allows new players into the game, like the daily fantasy sports (DFS) companies FanDuel and DraftKings.
Thus, while legalizing online channels makes the pie larger, it also brings more hungry mouths to the table and changes the rules for how that pie gets sliced up. Some casino giants, like MGM, Golden Nugget, and Caesars,have embraced the change. However, others, like Adelson’s Las Vegas Sands, don’t like the idea of taking a smaller slice of a larger pie.
Where’s Rush Street on online gambling?
Rush Street has fallen somewhere in between. Whereas Sands has opted out of the online space and may even leave the US entirely because of it, Rush Street has embraced online gambling in those states where it has become legal.
With its two brands, BetRivers and PlaySugarHouse, it is the number one online casino operator by revenue in Pennsylvania. It hasn’t jumped into the NJ online casino market but has an access deal in place for Michigan when that state eventually goes live.
On the other hand, it’s commonly suspected that Rivers and Rush Street had a hand in scuttling efforts to legalize online casinos in Illinois. The issue Rush Street has is specifically the disruption to the industry caused by newcomers like DraftKings. It’s the company’s position that DFS should have been illegal, so it sees the DFS companies as bad actors that should be excluded from legal markets.
Bluhm may or may not actually have much sway with Biden. Moreover, what’s going on in Illinois has little to do with the federal government. However, to the extent that Bluhm might be able to influence policy, it’s reasonable to guess that he’ll be generally in favor of legalization, but hawkish on gray market products and who gets a seat at the table.
When it comes to the federal government, less is more
As for Biden himself, perhaps the best indicator of what he’ll do as president is to look back at his years as vice president under BarackObama.
Those years weren’t particularly good for online gambling, but they were by the book. Online poker’s Black Friday happened on Obama’s watch, but it was simply the enforcement of a law, the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act, that dated back to the Bush years.
Likewise, federal efforts to expand the Wire Act to cover forms of gambling other than sports betting happened under Obama. However, those initial efforts went through proper legislative channels, and failed.
It was only after the Restoration of America’s Wire Act (RAWA) was dead that the Department of Justice attempted an end run around Congress. Its Office of Legal Council affirmed in 2011 that the Wire Act applied only to sports betting. And yet, it reversed course in 2019, under Trump. The DOJ issued a new opinion, stating it now believed the Act applied to all wagering.
This sparked a legal battle, initiated by the New Hampshire Lottery Commission. The case remains in appeals for now, but Biden has given signals that he’d like it put to rest. Bluhm’s influence may reinforce that and help ensure that there won’t be any further federal overreach under Biden when it comes to online gambling.
In other words, the best case and most likely outcome of a Biden presidency for online gambling is essentially nothing at all. We won’t see an effort to legalize online poker nationwide, as Biden’s rival in the primaries Andrew Yang proposed.
However, the federal government will probably stick to enforcing existing laws and otherwise leave matters up to the states. And that, at the end of the day, is a good thing.
Pennsylvania casinos reported that revenue returned to pre-pandemic levels in July, but the numbers also show how dramatically legal gambling has shifted from brick-and-mortar casinos to the internet in the era of COVID-19.
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The Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board on Monday reported total gaming revenue of $283 million in July, up from $281.5 million a year ago, a 0.5% year-on-year increase that would be nothing to crow about during normal times. But it is remarkable because July was the first time since the coronavirus lockdown that most casinos were operating.
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A significant amount of business has shifted from casinos to online platforms in the last year. Online slots, table games and poker generated $54.4 million in July. Along with online sports betting, internet gaming generated $61.2 million in revenue in July, or nearly 22 percent of all casino gaming revenue.
Internet gaming generated less than $4 million statewide a year ago in July, just two months after Rivers Casino Philadelphia, then called the SugarHouse Casino, was the first casino in Pennsylvania to launch I-gaming. The timing of I-gaming launch was auspicious, because online platforms provided the only gaming revenue for casinos during several months of lockdown.
The boom in online gambling made up for substantial year-on-year declines in retail betting, as some customers remained at home even after most casinos reopened in June. Retail slots revenue, which accounts for more revenue than all other types of games combined, was down 17% from a year ago. Revenue from casino-based table games was down 32% from a year ago.
Online slots play has quadrupled since February, but growth seems to be slowing now that the casinos have reopened, said Max Bichsel, vice president of U.S. Business for Gambling.com Group.
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“While online casino activity approached an all-time high in July with $54 million in revenue, growth for that sector of gaming in Pennsylvania seems to be flattening after a big surge during lockdown,” Bichsel said in a statement.
Sports betting, which was in its infancy when the coronavirus shut down most professional and collegiate competition, was up 22% from June as Major League Baseball and the NBA resumed games in late July. But it is still not up to pre-pandemic levels. About 84% of sports-betting revenue was generated online.
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Among the state’s 12 operating casinos, there were winners and losers.
Parx Casino in Bensalem generated $59.9 million in revenue, up 14.4% from a year ago -- it was one of only three casinos to report increases in retail slots revenue. Total revenue at Parx was more than double the next closest Pennsylvania casino, the Wind Creek Bethlehem, where revenue was off 38% from last year. The Bethlehem casino launched I-gaming only on July 24, so it has missed out on the online gaming boom.
Rivers Casino Philadelphia, which did not reopen until July 17 following four months of coronavirus lockdown, experienced big declines in retail slots and table games revenue since it was open only half the month. But the Philadelphia casino was the statewide leader in Internet casino-type gaming revenue, pulling in $15.5 million in revenue, making up for much of its decline in retail business.
Valley Forge Casino Resort, acquired in 2018 by Boyd Gaming of Nevada, reported a 57.7% increase in revenue over last year, largely because of its successful association with FanDuel for online sports wagering and casino games.
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Revenue from gambling, either online or in the casino, tells only part of the story about the financial health of the state’s casinos.
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Casinos do not report non-gaming revenue to the Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board, but earnings from the sales of food, beverage and entertainment went to zero during the lockdown. Even though live customers have returned to casinos, most venues are limited by health department regulations and offer only limited food and beverage service, curtailing cash flow and inflicting continued workforce reductions.
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