Resorts World New York City said it had accepted its first wager in New York after launching its mobile sports betting app, named Resorts World Bet.
KUCHING (March 7): Genting Malaysia Bhd’s (Genting Malaysia) wholly-owned subsidiary in New York has launched its mobile betting app on March 3 after winning a mobile sports betting licence in November last year.
Resorts World New York City (RWNYC) said it had accepted its first wager in New York after launching its mobile sports betting app, named Resorts World Bet (RWB).
It said that the app was launched just in time for March Madness, the annual month-long collegiate single-elimination basketball tournament played in the US which accepts bets on the outcome of the competition.
“Despite operating for only 24 days in January 2022, New York had already cemented itself as the largest mobile sports betting market in the US by raking in US$1.67 billion of mobile sports bets, which surpassed New Jersey’s record of US$1.3 billion in October 2021,” commented Hong Leong Investment Bank Bhd (HLIB Research) in its notes.
“As at end-January 2022, only six out of the nine approved operators had started their operations. Cumulatively, the net gaming revenue (NGR) for the six operators were US$60.8 million.
“While the mobile sports betting in New York was off to a strong start, it remains to be seen whether the momentum can sustain going forward as the first month figure was partially lifted by the heavy promotional offers given to new players.”
As part of the initial launch, RWNYC has invested nearly US$1 million to install digital displays across its premise to showcase all the big games throughout the year.
In addition, RWB is also offering risk-free bet of up to US$500 for new players.
“We believe that RWB could be at a disadvantage compared to its competitors as it was relatively late to launch the app; and it is a lesser known brand compared to the better established players such as Caesars, FanDuel and DraftKings,” HLIB Research said.
Based on analysis, HLIB Research saw that the NGR was unevenly distributed among the operators. For example, despite launching on the same date, Caesars’ NGR was 48 times of the NGR of BetRivers due to higher hold percentage for Caesars.
Besides that Caesars is more well-established, and Caesars offered a more attractive promotion for new players compared to BetRivers.
“Similarly, for RWB, as one of the lesser known players, we expect that it will need to spend heavily in advertising during its initial launch and continue to provide offers to players in order to entice players to join and gain market share,” it added.
“In addition, New York also has a high tax rate of 51 per cent on GGR. Thus, the enormous headline handle figure of US$1.67 billion only translated to NGR of US$60.8 million.
“Due to these reasons, we expect that RWB will likely need to undergo a gestation period before it can contribute meaningfully to the bottom line of the group.
“Having said that, we are still positive on this development as it allows the group to tap into the robust and growing mobile sports betting market in the US, which could potentially pave the way for it to penetrate to other states in the future.”