Gambling in the USA
INSIDE THE POCKET LAUNCHES FREE-TO-ENTER $100k PRO FOOTBALL SURVIVOR GAME TO PROMOTE BROADER INDUSTRY ADOPTION
Inside The Pocket (ITP), the world’s only free-to-play and pay-to-play (F2P & P2P) aggregation platform, has launched Pro Football Survivor, an exciting new F2P game that offers industry professionals a jaw-dropping $100k prize ($50k to the winner, and a further $50k to their nominated charity) ahead of the upcoming 2023/24 Pro Football season, which gets underway on 7 September.
Pro Football Survivor is aimed at engaging all businesspeople at the intersection of sports betting and business, media and igaming, alongside a wider ecosystem – from leagues to agencies, across hospitality providers, caterers and even restaurants.
The popular Survivor format simply asks all participants to pick a non-reusable team to win every week throughout the entire Regular Season and the Playoffs. This ease of play is the reason for its recognised acquisition and retention strengths around repeat visits and improved dwell-time (as players routinely return to check results and their respective standings against colleagues and friends on the leaderboard, which is settled and updated after each game day).
The competition rules are as follows:
- Register at: https://itpsurvivor.io/survivor/
- Each week during the Pro Football season and playoffs, you must pick the winner of a game.
- You can only choose each team once throughout the entire season, including the playoffs and the Pro Football Championship game in Las Vegas.
- Only the final results at the end of regulation time will count. If a game you select is tied at the end of regulation, the selection will be deemed to have lost, regardless of overtime.
The game is now open to entries and industry peer-to-peer sharing across an evolving landscape of diverse players and companies which represent a wide spectrum of commercial intersectionality. ITP continues to stand alone in the F2P and P2P content market in that, via a single integration, it opens up an entire market of 20+ free-to-play and pay-to-play content providers to satisfy sports and casino needs around the world, irrespective of the data environment.
Hussain Naqi, Founder and CEO of Inside The Pocket, said: “No matter what Al Pacino said in Any Given Sunday, it’s actually a game of inching along, surviving week-by-week, and outlasting your rivals. So, join us for Pro Football Survivor and stand a chance to win big while also supporting a great charitable cause! It’s a fun way to learn more about America’s favourite sport, or flex your bragging-rights if you know the game well. It takes under a minute each week, and hopefully you’ll be coming back every week to play!”
“We’ve launched Pro Football Survivor to help people understand how we’re different. And it’s a broad church out there whom we want to engage, shining a light on the wide-ranging solutions that our unique platform can provide when it comes to acquisition and retention.
“We’re focused on B2B clients, whether that’s in sports media, the betting and gaming space, the hospitality industry, the restaurant sector or any other party amongst a varied Venn Diagram of interconnectivity. At ITP, we want to house many new potential partners under this same roof, such is our platform’s ability to target specific recreational player-groups and fulfil nuanced acquisition and retention goals.
“At ITP, we don’t view the landscape merely in terms of games. Rather, we think about the space as an entire ecosystem and strategy which we specifically cultivate as a flexible and ever-evolving piece of content for an overlapping and interdependent chain of companies to whom we can now demonstrate the multifaceted solutions of ITP.
“We have content of our own. We have an aggregation layer where we’ll put competitors side-by-side. We offer best-in-class data deals. In short, our unique platform drives new levels in acquisition and retention through its multiplicity of games, bespoke localised strategies and a quick-fire integration which averages just under three weeks in duration. This allows our partners to plan globally but think locally, mitigating regulatory risk from the patchwork quilt of state-by-state regulation in North America to LatAm, Africa and APAC.
“Perhaps our biggest challenge is to make people understand that variety is our touchstone. You can’t just back one horse, lest it become a flogging horse. Instead, companies need to be rolling out a variety of different products. We want our registrants to come to see this Survivor game as a sticky and intuitive free-to-play product that reliably gets people coming back each week. It has that crucial repeat-engagement attribute where everyone can quickly see the value proposition.”
Gambling in the USA
Caesars Entertainment Celebrates Grand Opening of Company’s First Nebraska Property, Harrah’s Columbus Nebraska Racing and Casino
Harrah’s Columbus, NE Racing & Casino, Caesars Entertainment’s first venture into the Cornhusker State, opened its doors to guests for the first time. Caesars, Columbus Exposition and Racing and the Columbus community celebrated the momentous occasion with a ribbon cutting, giveaways and more.
Opening day guests received commemorative Harrah’s shirts before making the property’s historical first spins on the slots, table game wagers and first bets at the Caesars Race & Sportsbook. The first jackpot was hit at 10:14 a.m. with a lucky guest winning $1,876 on Power Push.
“We’re so proud to open the doors to Harrah’s Columbus, NE Racing & Casino for the first time today,” said Todd Connelly, Regional President of Caesars Entertainment. “Harrah’s is an iconic brand that our guests have come to know and love across the country. We’re so happy to be here with our partners and friends as we celebrate what is sure to be a bright future in Nebraska.”
The new destination features a 17,000-square-foot casino with 400 slot machines, 11 table games and a Caesars Race & Sportsbook featuring a 2,100-square-foot sports and simulcast betting area conveniently located on the casino floor. The area contains 17 viewing screens, including a massive 163-inch video wall for the ultimate sports viewing experience. The opening of Caesars Race & Sportsbook at Harrah’s Columbus, NE Racing & Casino marks the first time Caesars Sportsbook has accepted sports wagers in the Cornhusker State.
Harrah’s Columbus, NE Racing & Casino is also home to the award-winning restaurant Brew Brothers, founded by the Carano family in 1995, and a bar called Wishbones. A Marriott Fairfield Inn and Townplace Suites is under construction next door and will connect directly to the casino once complete later this year.
In partnership with Columbus Exposition and Racing, Harrah’s Columbus Nebraska will be home to a one-mile racetrack, the longest track in the state. The track will host 15 live races every Friday – Sunday from Aug. 16 to Sept. 15, as well as one on Labor Day. Each date will offer all-ages Grandstand seating, along with 21+ in-person and kiosk betting.
Harrah’s Columbus NE, Racing & Casino is also part of Caesars Entertainment’s expansive Caesars Rewards® network. Guests who play at the new destination can earn and redeem Reward Credits at any of Caesars Entertainment’s 50+ properties in North America.
Pennsylvania Skill, powered by Pace-O-Matic (POM), applauded the April revenue reports that show the gaming industry in the state made more than $504 million for the third time since April of last year. Pennsylvania gaming grossed nearly $1.7 billion in commercial revenue in just the first three months of 2024, second only to the casino capital of the United States, Nevada.
The funding comes from slot machines, table games, internet gaming, sports wagering, fantasy contests and video gaming terminals (VGTs).
As the Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board (PGCB) celebrates yet another big financial month, however, casinos continue to falsely claim their revenue is impacted by skill games.
“We want to know what the revenue number is that casinos need to hit, or the next record they need to break before they stop claiming skill games are competition,” said Mike Barley, chief public affairs officer for POM. “Every month, we read about their incredible revenue gains, and then the casino industry turns around and claims they are losing money because of skill games. Their arguments don’t pass the smell test.”
Instead of battling skill games, Barley said casinos should support legislation sponsored by Sen. Gene Yaw and Rep. Danilo Burgos that will regulate and tax skill games. There is bipartisan backing for the legislation that will place guardrails around skill game operations and provide as much as $250 million in skill game state tax revenue in just the first year. Gov. Josh Shapiro wants to see skill game tax revenue as part of his 2024-25 state budget.
Given the casino industry revenue gains so far this year, it is hard to understand why they are crying wolf. “It’s difficult to see how skill games are causing hardship for a billion-dollar industry,” Barley said, adding that there is room for both gambling and skill games in the Commonwealth. Since skill games entered the marketplace, gambling revenue has increased and broken records.
Several courts have ruled Pennsylvania Skill games are legal, including a unanimous Commonwealth Court last year. In addition to providing supplemental income to small businesses, many Pennsylvania Skill games are manufactured in Williamsport, and over 90 percent of the income they generate stays within the local economy and the state.
The baseless accusations, Barley explained, are an assault on small businesses, veterans groups, volunteer fire companies and other fraternal clubs across the state that count on legal skill games to make ends meet. Small business owners with skill games in their establishments are saying the revenue has saved their businesses.
Many of these locations rely on income from skill games to offer competitive wages and benefits to their employees, who are often heads of households supporting their families. This is what struggling families need right now, not another roadblock, Barley explained.
The proposed legislation limits the number of skill games per establishment to no more than five in LCB and lottery-licensed locations and up to ten at fraternal clubs.
Skill game distributors, operators and locations will be licensed and regulated through the Department of Revenue. The Pennsylvania State Police Bureau of Liquor Control & Enforcement and local law enforcement in counties of the first class would be responsible for policing the skill game industry, helping to crack down on illegal games encroaching on communities across the Commonwealth.
“Backing this legislation means speaking up for the little guy – volunteer fire companies, VFW posts, mom-and-pop shops, fraternal clubs, small businesses and their employees. I believe Pennsylvanians can sleep comfortably knowing that the big internationally owned casinos will continue to survive on their record profits.” Barley said.
The three Detroit casinos reported $109.44 million in monthly aggregate revenue (AGR) for the month of April 2024, of which $107.87 million was generated from table games and slots, and $1.57 million from retail sports betting.
The April market shares were:
- MGM, 46%
- MotorCity, 30%
- Hollywood Casino at Greektown, 24%
Monthly Table Games, Slot Revenue, and Taxes
The casinos’ revenue for table games and slots for the month of April 2024 decreased 1.6% when compared to the same month last year. April’s monthly revenue was 11.8% lower when compared to the previous month, March 2024. From Jan. 1 through April 30, the Detroit casinos’ table games and slots revenue decreased by 1.6% compared to the same period last year.
The casinos’ monthly gaming revenue results were mixed compared to April of last year:
- MGM, down 0.7% to $49.86 million
- MotorCity, down 4.5% to $32.68 million
- Hollywood Casino at Greektown, up 0.6% to $25.33 million
In April 2024, the three Detroit casinos paid $8.74 million in gaming taxes to the State of Michigan. They paid $8.88 million for the same month last year. The casinos also reported submitting $12.8 million in wagering taxes and development agreement payments to the City of Detroit in April.
Monthly Retail Sports Betting Revenue and Taxes
The three Detroit casinos reported $15.28 million in total retail sports betting handle, and total gross receipts were $1.57 million for the month of April. Retail sports betting qualified adjusted gross receipts (QAGR) were up by $1.5 million in April when compared to the same month last year. Compared to March 2024, April QAGR was down by 1.7%.
April QAGR by casino was:
- MGM: $475,492
- MotorCity: $516,812
- Hollywood Casino at Greektown: $578,131
During April, the casinos paid $59,362 in gaming taxes to the state and reported submitting $72,554 in wagering taxes to the City of Detroit based on their retail sports betting revenue.
Fantasy Contests
For March 2024, fantasy contest operators reported total adjusted revenues of $494,162 and paid taxes of $41,510.
-
Latest News5 days agoPragmatic Play to Participate in CGS Santiago
-
Gambling in the USA5 days agoDetroit Casinos Report $109.44M in April Revenue
-
Press Releases5 days agoQ1 2024 Commercial Gaming Revenue Sets New Quarterly High, Marks 13th Straight Month of Industry Growth
-
Gambling in the USA7 days agoXSOLLA RELEASES QUARTERLY INSIGHTS REPORT ON THE FUTURE OF GAMING AND GAME DEVELOPMENT: A PRELIMINARY ANALYSIS OF SPRING 2024 METRICS AND UPCOMING TRENDS
-
Latest News4 days agoCirca Sports Launches Mobile App in Kentucky
-
Latest News5 days agoRelax Gaming enhances Latin American presence with Betsala partnership
-
Canada5 days agoPlay’n GO announces partnership with Canadian operator Loto-Québec
-
Latin America6 days agoVibra Gaming releases content through Czar Gaming