FanDuel Sportsbook now has the green light to move forward with its plan of entering the Illinois sports betting market with a retail outlet. This resulted from the issuance recently of a master sports wagering license to Fairmount Park, located near St. Louis. Expect a rebranding to follow once FanDuel gets their brick-and-mortar sportsbook in place with Fairmount Park becoming FanDuel Sportsbook and Horse Racing.
What Fairmount Will Become
The partnership will see the track converted into what is being called a “racino” which means that in addition to live horse racing there will be slot machines, and table games pending the granting of a casino license. The move by FanDuel puts the sports betting company on par with its largest state rivals, DraftKings Sportsbook and BetRivers. The partnership may also lead to FanDuel expanding in short order to provide many off-track betting sites with a sportsbook to reach a wider customer base in the region. Call it a hunch, but that is the business model being used by PointsBet with their partnership at Hawthorne Race Course near Chicago. It just makes sense to follow the lead and incorporate the same kind of activity.
The Geographic Location Is A Winner
It had been speculated that FanDuel was going to set up shop with Par-A-Dice Casino but when you compare the location of that site to Fairmount Park, you get a clearer picture of what FanDuel is seeking. Par-A-Dice is situated just about in the center of the state of Illinois. While that is not entirely bad, the location is also several hours away from the big cities of Chicago and St. Louis. For travelers who intend to make in-person visits to the sportsbook, this is quite simply inconvenient. However, Fairmount Park happens to sit just east of St. Louis which gives FanDuel access to at least 302,500 people living in that city. Considering that Fairmount Park is a quick 15-minute drive from St’ Louis, essentially a hop, skip, and a jump over the Mississippi River that separates Missouri from Illinois, and it makes perfect business sense as to why FanDuel chose one over the other.
Will The Location Win If In-Person Registration Continues?
Here’s where FanDuel will likely feel the pressure from the competition – DraftKings in particular. That launch of online sports betting in Illinois occurred just as COVID-19 was becoming identified as a pandemic. This pushed state legislators to open up the option to let bettors in Illinois register their online wagering accounts remotely rather than in-person. This option has been extended several times and currently runs into November. If it gets extended further, FanDuel will probably be okay. However, once the ruling shifts back to in-person registration only, DraftKings stands to gain a bit of an edge. That’s because bettors from St. Louis traveling to register in-person at FanDuel will be driving right by the DraftKings at Casino Queen sportsbook that sits just over the Mississippi River. It could make for some rather interesting scenarios and we’d love to know what the odds are on FanDuel not being affected in this case.
The Numbers Tell The Story
Why so much interest in sports betting within the state? All you need to do is take a look at the stats that are coming out of the Illinois Gaming Board (IGB) since sports betting was first legalized in the state back in June of 2019. Although it wasn’t until March 2020 when the first brick-and-mortar sportsbook opened and June 2020 when the first mobile online sportsbook opened, the numbers they have been producing are staggering. The biggest monthly handle to date was in August 2020 with a total of $139,643,887. That’s from just 7 Brick-and-mortar and 5 online sportsbooks. The brick-and-mortar ones have only been in business for a maximum of five months and just three months for the online sportsbooks. With that kind of volume, there is no doubt that Illinois is looking very attractive to sports betting operators. Plus, when you factor in that roughly 89% of that handle was generated through mobile wagering, it doesn’t take much to realize that there is something really amazing going on here. Quite honestly, the state has created a climate perfect for this new industry, and with a tax rate of 15% tacked on to sportsbooks, the state stands to benefit along the way.
Why Illinois Sports Betting Attracts Players From Missouri
The short answer is that the Show-Me State has not legalized sports betting. That doesn’t mean it isn’t on the radar at the state level. A total of six sports betting bills were filed in the state by April 2020 but the coronavirus derailed the momentum on that front. The state does have several race tracks, but wagering is not allowed at any of them. There are many legal casinos in Missouri and plans may see partnerships between a few of these and sportsbook operators, much like has happened in Illinois. The bills that have been filed also give the nod to online sports betting apps destined to be legalized within Missouri, but everything is on hold at the moment. Your guess is as good as anyone else’s at this point and it is safe to say that any further movement on legalizing sports wagering in Missouri will not take place until 2021. That means it could be 2022 or beyond before bettors can participate within their own state. So, for now, residents of St. Louis and the surrounding area have betting options next door in Illinois to keep them occupied.
In Conclusion
You can’t say FanDuel isn’t properly named. All good business operators know that the biggest influencer on revenue generation is “location, location, location” and should the state revert back to in-person registrations only for gaming accounts, it could create the circumstances where a duel for fans may develop between FanDuel and DraftKings over on one side of the state of Illinois. But that just means both of those players will have to roll out innovative features within their retail sportsbooks or apps that will make them unique from each other and produce features that will give the fans something to consider when choosing their preferred sportsbook.
