The Hollywood Casino & Inn at Charles Town Races will debut the era of legal West Virginia sports betting sometime before Sept. 1, per Danielle Boyd, managing legal counsel for the state Lottery Commission.
“We had hoped everyone would launch at the same time and everyone would be up at the beginning of football season,” Boyd said in a Monday appearance on MetroNews’ “Sportsline” program, per MetroNews. “As we move forward, it appears that we’re going to have sort of a phased launch and it’s going to be a tiered approach. We’re just really excited to see that Charles Town will be ready to launch by Sept. 1.”
This comes after the Lottery Commission filed its legislature rules for public comment, a process was delayed by Governor Jim Justice’s office.
WV Sports Betting Will Begin At Hollywood Casino In Retail Form With Others Set to Join Later.
While the Lottery Commission, tasked with regulatory oversight of the state’s sports betting operators/operations, was hoping to have all its licensees up and running before football, but a combination of powers outside its control (the Governor’s office) and of implementing a brand new gaming offering has created some delay.
That also goes for the mobile/online aspect, which will follow implementation of the physical properties. Under the state’s forward-thinking enabling legislation, once the betting software is approved and running, patrons will be able to register, deposit and bet on sports from anywhere in the state.
“The technology for mobile and online is new to us in West Virginia,” Boyd said on Sportsline. “We’re starting from square one, whereas New Jersey already had online casinos in place, online poker and other casino-style games.”
We also learned last week that William Hill has a deal in place with a soon-to-be announced partner in West Virginia. Sometime after the debut of Penn National’s Hollywood Casino, located in Charles Town, W.Va., in the northeastern portion of the state located near Pennsylvania, Maryland and Virginia, the Justice-owned Greenbrier Resort will cut a ribbon at its FanDuel Sportsbook, which is now owned by Paddy Power Betfair. The newly-formed FanDuel Group and the Greenbrier announced their partnership in late June. With some hitches, FanDuel began cutting its sports betting teeth at the Meadowlands Racetrack in northern New Jersey in mid-July.
The Mardi Gras Casino and Resort and Mountaineer Casino, Racetrack and Resort have not yet announced partnerships in sports betting risk-management, technology and operations.
In early March, West Virginia became the first state to pass a law in 2018, the West Virginia Lottery Sports Wagering Act, legalizing sports betting, pending the outcome of Murphy v NCAA in the Supreme Court. On May 14 the high court ruled that the federal law banning sports wagering outside Nevada was unconstitutional.
The state’s applies a 10 percent tax rate on gross gaming revenue, retail or online.
