Gambling News Flash – Interstate Online Poker Now Legal & DK Breaks Record
This week’s casino news starts us off in the NJ gambling website’s poker realm. Interstate poker could be coming to a place near you, which is a big win for the player.
Interstate Online Poker Legal? YUP
It has been a very long journey for online poker to cross interstate lines but it seems that the day they’ve been working for is right around the corner. The U.S. Department of Justice was unable to appeal the long-standing lawsuit against the New Hampshire Lottery, which basically legalizes interstate online poker. Originally, the DOJ had filed this lawsuit because they felt that any type of interstate gambling was illegal and the group was fighting very hard to keep it that way.
States have slowly been allowing interstate online poker over the years, with Delaware and Nevada legalizing it back in 2014. New Jersey hopped onto that trend just a few years later. However, the only licensed website in all three of those states is WSOP.com as other companies like PokerStars are yet to be licensed across those three areas.
Now that the ongoing legal battle is coming to an end, the expansion of online poker is a serious possibility in Michigan. There has already been some legislation making the rounds that would allow interstate online player pools, which improves the chances that we see everything start to come together.
What this means for players is bigger tournaments and bigger prize pools. For example, in New Jersey, instead of only playing against players in the Garden State, they can now engage in tournaments with players from multiple states. More players involved in each event means bigger tournament guarantees and bigger prize pools. In the end, this is great news for customers.
DraftKings On Track To Top Their Second Quarter Revenue Estimates
The second quarter of 2021 has ended and we’re seeing a lot of various revenue numbers reported. For DraftKingsSportsbook, the final tally ended up being more successful than were imagining. There have been reports stating that the massive sportsbook operator is on track to top their current estimates for revenue in the second quarter, which is April through June.
Some analysts had believed that DraftKings would fall nearly 23 percent during this quarter mostly because there, of course, was no NFL action. However, the NBA was in their postseason as was the NHL, and as a result, DraftKings only dipped 11 percent through that time. Proving the estimations wrong is big on Wall Street and should help their stock.
DraftKings has quite a large reach in the United States as they operate in a number of different states. They have online sports betting in New Jersey, New Hampshire, Tennessee, West Virginia, Virginia and Colorado, among many other states. They are also functioning in Iowa, Michigan, Indiana, Illinois and Pennsylvania. DraftKings doesn’t seem to be too worried about revenue dips at the moment despite the dog days of summer coming up.
Caesars Entertainment Holds Onto Horseshoe Hammond
Caesars Entertainment has been hit pretty hard in Indiana, as the Indiana Gaming Commission was requiring the company to sell a third casino inside the state. That’s because of their merger with El Dorado as the industry is trying to prevent a monopoly.
It appears that the burden was eased a little bit as Caesars will reportedly be holding onto Horseshoe Hammond alongside Harrah’s Hoosier Park. Caesars also owns three different off-track gambling spots in the state and they will not have to let go of those either.
Tom Reeg, the CEO of Caesars Entertainment, talked about how much potential Horseshoe Hammond has in the state and that it would be in their best interest to keep it. In the end, they got their wish.
Caesars has been making a flurry of moves so far in 2021. They are expected to lock down the sale of Caesars Southern Indiana later in the year and have already closed in on Tropicana Evansville.