Three-day test before full launch
BetMGM is in the midst of an online casino soft launch in Pennsylvania. Running Tuesday through Thursday, it is a test run, with limited hours and limited games to be sure everything works and looks good for state regulators. Assuming the soft launch finishes without any major hiccups, the full launch will be on Friday, December 4.
BetMGM is the leading online casino operator in New Jersey, but is late to the party in Pennsylvania, following a dozen competing sites/apps. The state’s online gambling industry has been running since last summer.
Late entry in busy market
It is certainly odd that such a major player would sacrifice more than a year of revenue in an attractive market, but a series of business decisions seem to be the main reason for the delay. Licenses in Pennsylvania were open to the state’s licensed brick-and-mortar casinos. If an online operator wanted in, they could partner with a casino.
If some of the licenses went unclaimed – not all casinos applied for all different types of licenses – the Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board (PGCB) considered out-of-state casinos to fill in the gaps. These outside casinos are called “qualified gaming entities” (QGE). BetMGM decided to partner with Atlantic City’s Borgata, as it does in the New Jersey market.
That decision in and of itself gave BetMGM a late start, as QGEs were at the bottom of the applicant list. But then the company changed course, ditched Borgata, and partnered with Hollywood Casino at Penn National Race Course in Grantville, Pennsylvania, causing further delays.
Just online casino games for now
To start, BetMGM is only offering online casino gaming. Sports betting is all the rage right now – operators are racing to launch apps wherever it is legal – but this is another situation where BetMGM’s partnering decision may be hurting it.
QGEs can’t offer sports betting in the Keystone State, so in that sense, it is good that BetMGM is not paired with Borgata. But in-state licensees are only permitted a total of three skins, and of those, only one can be a sportsbook. Hollywood Casino already has a sports betting site, so BetMGM might be out in the cold there.
Then there is online poker. BetMGM is a brand of Roar Digital (the actual MGM/GVC joint venture), along with partypoker, Borgata Online, and PartyCasino in the United States. BetMGM Poker is part of the partypoker New Jersey network, so it would only be natural for BetMGM to launch a poker site in Pennsylvania. There is only one site, PokerStars, in the state right now, and a future interstate network with New Jersey’s partypoker network would work great. One would expect a BetMGM poker room to launch at some point in Pennsylvania, but it may be a while.
