Update: As of Tuesday morning, the Department of Consumer Protection website showed that sports wagering operator licenses for the Connecticut Lottery, Mashantucket Pequot Tribe, and Mohegan Tribe had were active, which should clear the way for launch.
The Mashantucket Pequot’s amended gaming compact with the state of Connecticut was posted in the Federal Register Monday morning, clearing the way for both of the state’s tribes and the Connecticut Lottery to move forward with live, legal sports betting and iGaming.
The details of the approval letter are not available, but the compact, like the one for the Mohegan Tribe, allows the Pequots to offer statewide mobile and retail wagering, as well as iCasino. According to the posting, the compact became effective as of Sept. 10.
A launch date is not yet set in Connecticut, though Gov. Ned Lamont’s chief of staff, Paul Mounds, pointed this month to Oct. 7 for go live. The Department of Consumer Protection, which will be the regulator, says it does not have a set date in mind, and it has not yet issued operators’ licenses to any entity. Applications from the Mohegans, Pequots, and Connecticut Lottery for sports wagering operator licenses are listed as “pending” on the department’s website.
Under the compacts and the new law, each of the approved entities will offer wagering through partners — the Mohegans (Mohegan Sun) are partnered with FanDuel, the Pequots (Foxwoods) with DraftKings, and the lottery with Rush Street Interactive. The tribes and their partners will also offer online casino, but the lottery and RSI are barred from doing so.
The road to go live
All three entities have said they would go live at the same time. State regulations call for operators to give a 10-day notice ahead of launch, and according to the DCP, all three companies have done so. The initial go live will mark the start of a seven-day soft-launch period during which the regulator will test systems and monitor wagering. That period could include limits on the available hours, events, and other options for betting. The Department of Consumer Protection has not yet released details.
Once the soft-launch period is over, online platforms will be free to operate 24 hours a day with a full menu of wagers. It is possible, according to a source, that retail wagering could be live by the end of the week.
Ahead of go-live, the department last week unveiled its self-exclusion portal, which allows bettors to exclude themselves for one or five years or for life.
