Sports betting
Foxwoods, Draft Kings make deal for online sports betting.
Sports betting will be legal in Connecticut next year, a top lawmaker said Monday as Foxwoods Resort Casino and Draft Kings, a digital sports entertainment business, announced a partnership pitched to raise revenue and revive eastern Connecticut’s economy, both badly damaged by the coronavirus.
“Sports betting will be legalized in 2021,” said Rep. Sean Scanlon, incoming House chairman of the legislature’s finance committee. “You can bet on it.”
The failure in previous years is a “missed opportunity,” he said.
“It’s one of my biggest priorities,” said Scanlon, D-Guilford.
The Mashantucket Pequot Tribal Nation, which owns and operates Foxwoods, and DraftKings said their deal will set the stage for online sports betting “ahead of the anticipated launch of legal sports betting in Connecticut.”
Gov. Ned Lamont and the legislature, irked that neighboring states are capitalizing on lucrative sports betting, have unsuccessfully sought to draft legislation permitting sports betting and making other changes in Connecticut’s gambling law. Each attempt has run aground on the state’s compacts with Foxwoods and the Mohegan Sun.
The tribal owners of the casinos insist they have exclusive gambling rights, drawing threats of lawsuits by commercial sports betting sites that will not accept being shut out of competition for Connecticut’s market.
Lamont said he will introduce legislation on expanded gambling after negotiating with the casino’s tribal owners.
“I want to put forward something that works, that doesn’t result in litigation, that gets us off the dime,” he told reporters at his regular briefing on the coronavirus. “We’ve been talking about this for close to a decade in this state. And I think Connecticut ought to participate and it ought to be led by the tribes.”
The governor would not say whether his legislation would give the tribes rights to online gambling while sharing sports betting with other operators.
As they announced the deal, the Mashantuckets said their “exclusive rights to operate” gambling in Connecticut have generated $8 billion over nearly 30 years from the 25% share of slot revenue paid to the state.
Online gambling and sports betting are projected to generate $175 million in new revenue for the state over five years, Foxwoods and DraftKings said. Rodney Butler, chairman of the Mashantucket Pequots, said the state’s share would be $40 million to $60 million a year.
If the state authorizes Keno and iLottery, a phone app to buy lottery tickets, revenue would be twice that amount, he said.
In March, Lamont backed a bill that would let tribal casinos, off-track betting sites and CT Lottery locations operate the industry.
The bill would not have given exclusive rights to the tribal casinos to operate sports betting, as would another proposed bill.
Sen. Cathy Osten, D-Sprague, a major legislative ally of the two Connecticut casinos, dismissed the threat of a lawsuit by commercial operators if the tribes have exclusive rights.
“You think by violating the compact that’s not going to result in a lawsuit?” she said. “We’re in serious trouble in eastern Connecticut.”
Since it reopened June 1 after being shut more than 10 weeks, Foxwoods posted revenue that was down nearly $36 million from last year, off nearly 20%. And the region shed 12,000 jobs from October 2019 to last month, a drop of 9.3%, second only to Waterbury, according to the state Department of Labor.
The 2020 session of the legislature was sidetracked by the coronavirus pandemic, but sports betting is expected to come up next year.
Butler said he believes legislation would have passed this year. “Ultimately, logic would have prevailed and we would have had legislation in place,” he said.
Sports betting fills revenue gaps caused by the damage to Connecticut’s economy from the coronavirus, Butler said.
Without highway tolls or limited tax revenue linked to plastic bag use, the state faces few options “other than what we’re proposing,” he said.
Matt Kalish, co-founder and president of DraftKings North America, called the Foxwoods agreement a “landmark deal” and a “critical next step” to bringing its sportsbook app to Connecticut.
DraftKings is live with mobile sports betting in 10 states, more than any other operator in the U.S., the company said.