Twin River, the Rhode Island-based gaming company, has announced that is has signed partnership deals with DraftKings and FanDuel regarding the operations of their recently acquired three casinos in Colorado.
Acquiring the Casinos
The ink on the $51 million deal with Affinity Gaming for the three casinos, Golden Gates, Golden Gulch and Mardi Gras, located close to one another along a strip of casino and hotel properties in Black Hawk, Colorado, has not dried completely, when Twin River came up with the news that it has signed deals with sports betting companies DraftKings and FanDuel, offering them two of their three state licenses to launch online and sports betting operations.
Back in November 2019, Colorado became the 19th US state to legalize sports betting, though by a very narrow margin in the public referendum votes, despite of the idea behind the legalization act to generate a sports gambling tax in support of the water-related initiatives throughout the state with an estimate of $29 million on an annual base from a tax rate of 10% on net operators’ proceeds.
Even earlier, in May 2019, the state general Assembly passed a bill that made sports betting legal in the mountain towns of Black Hawk, Central City and Cripple Creek, provided that the oncoming public referendum would be successful, making the casinos in these locations more attractive for investment from the gaming operators that were expected to show up.
Equal Minds, Equal Purpose
Twin River is a relatively small casino operator, having casinos so far only in Rhode Island and Mississippi, with even less experience in the online sports betting department, and entering a third state, after the purchase of the three Blackhawk casinos, requires a level of popularity they probably fall short of, and the partnership deals with DraftKings, who already have sports books live in five states, and FanDuel who operate a sports betting platform in four other states, seem to be a reasonable move.
Equally excited, both DraftKings and FanDuel hail the partnership deals, as they are seeing them as opportunities to provide exciting, real-time gaming experience and to enter states that open up online and mobile sports betting, with Twin River being the perfect partner to give them the desired market entry.
Capacity to Utilize
Twin River Colorado casinos span across 36,000 square feet of gaming space in total, consisting of 20 table games, 700 slot machines and a poker room, with 3 restaurants and bars and large parking lots, in addition to the gaming facilities, that make them easily accessible and attractive to the public.