Downtown Las Vegas casino owner Derek Stevens decided the 2018 Global Gaming Expo was the perfect setting to announce he was launching a sports betting business.
Five months earlier, a US Supreme Court ruling allowed states to legalize and regulate sports betting. By the time G2E rolled around, half a dozen states had joined Nevada in offering legal sports betting.
Meanwhile, Stevens was in the early stages of developing Circa Resort & Casino, the first hotel-casino from the ground in the city center in almost four decades. Prior to the opening of the Circa Sportsbook property showroom on three levels, the D Las Vegas and Golden Gate sportsbooks became the launchpad for Circa Sports, which includes a mobile sports betting app.
Circa Sports is located in all three downtown Stevens casinos, with satellite operations at The Pass Casino in Henderson, the off-Strip Tuscany on East Flamingo Road, and the recently opened Legends Bay Casino in Sparks. The locations allow Circa to increase signups for mobile sports betting, due to a Nevada rule that requires users to register in person.
Stevens has since taken Circa Sports out of the Silver State to Iowa and Colorado, where the business is mobile only. Circa partners with the Wild Rose Casino & Resort in Jefferson, Iowa, and Century Casinos Cripple Creek in Colorado.
Early next year, Stevens plans to launch mobile and retail sports betting in Illinois as part of Full House Resorts’ $500 million American Place Casino Resort, located 40 miles north of Chicago in Waukegan.
With sports betting legal in 31 states and Washington, D.C., Stevens sees a bigger playing field.
Other states do not have a mobile registration requirement. Outside of Nevada, Circa competes with the major sports betting operators – DraftKings, FanDuel, BetMGM and Caesars Sportsbooks – which often combine for 80 percent to 90 percent of any market.
Eilers &; Krejcik Gaming analyst Chris Krafcik, who follows the national sports betting industry, said Circa Sports has been able to differentiate itself from the competition, but cutting through a market dominated by the four major companies is no mean feat. easy
“We think Circa has the potential to carve out a sustainable niche in Colorado, but that the strategic lane it currently has mostly to itself will soon become more crowded,” he said.
Additionally, Krafcik said that based on performance testing by the consulting firm, Circa’s mobile app is “simply not competitive with the top tiers or even the middle of apps. (That’s) a major issue.”
However, Krafcik said the main selling point for Stevens is its showcase sports at Circa Casino Resort, especially for customers in nearby states, such as Colorado, which serve as feeder markets for Las Vegas.
“Circa has some potentially compelling levers to pull Colorado,” he said. “We also expect Circa to come under pressure as more online sports betting brands begin to cater to the stronger and higher demographic thresholds.”
Stevens said Circa Sports is basically in the early innings in the first game of a doubleheader, especially as additional states, including major population centers of California and Texas, move forward with legalizing the sports betting.
This interview has been edited for clarity and length.
Are you happy with the way sports betting has looked nationally since 2018?
It’s amazing to see the impact sports betting is having on our networks, media, and teams and leagues. It’s terrible and kind of what I expected to see happen.
You have just launched at Bajja Lejgendi Casino. How important was it for Circa Sports to be in Northern Nevada?
We’ve wanted to get into Northern Nevada for a while and this is just a situation where everything aligned. Being a part of the first new ground up property for Northern Nevada in a long time was a great opportunity for our company. I was excited about the place on the Sparks Marina from the first time we saw it and wanted to build something special. (The sportsbook has a 10-foot by 15-foot Daktronics video board that displays live odds and six large television screens, multiple seating areas and capacity for 140 sports bets.)
Would you like to see Nevada allow remote registration for sports betting?
That’s a pretty complicated question. That is a multi-layered question. I stayed out of that fray. One thing I will say about the subject is how the different states came out. When you don’t have a registration requirement at a casino, you end up limiting future investment. As an example, you are not seeing a large amount of investment in the sports books that are in the properties in Colorado.
Let’s put it this way: If Nevada had remote registration, we wouldn’t be investing everything to build a sportsbook like we did in Sparks, which created 15 jobs. That’s why it’s kind of a complicated question.
How does Circa Sports compete with the four major companies?
I don’t know that they ever considered us as competing against them. I owe a lot to FanDuel, MGM, Caesars and DraftKings. Clearly FanDuel, especially, is very dominant No. 1. That’s like asking how someone competes with a good 500-location restaurant chain. I don’t know that. We just wanted to be able to compete in the market. I don’t see it as Coke versus Pepsi or Ford versus GM. I think there is room for good sportsbooks in all markets. The way to live and the way to grow your business is by differentiating. I think our product is quite different from everyone else just mentioned.
What are your thoughts on the heavy spending by operators on advertising and promotions to sign up customers?
I think the marketing spend that DraftKings puts out is pretty amazing and I’m glad the company is spending so much money to raise awareness for consumers. I think when we look back at the history of the last four years and let’s say 10 years down the road, we will always be respectful of what DraftKings has done to help create an industry. They are definitely looking for large quantities of customers. This is not necessarily Circa Sports.
Is Circa’s goal to carve out its own audience?
That’s really what we’re doing and I think over time, it will become much more apparent. Each sportsbook will be a little different for each consumer. I don’t know that there is one sportsbook that will ever be dominant from a consumer perspective, because everyone has different needs. I think there is a lot of room for something different.
FanDuel is branding the Fremont sportsbook in partnership with Boyd Gaming. What do you think about having FanDuel downtown?
I think it’s great. Boyd (who owns 5 percent of FanDuel) has had his deal for a while. Again, I don’t really see them as competing with us and I don’t really see them as competing with them. It’s a different scenario. It’s like the hotel-casino business in Vegas. People ask how we compete with $4 billion properties and I just tell them we have a different business model. We don’t really see ourselves as competing with MGM or Caesars in the casino business. I consider us complementary. This is how it works in sports betting.
What are your thoughts on the two California sports betting ballot questions?
We are not involved in this matter, but between what the tribes are pushing against what the other group is pushing, there are positives on both sides. Whether or not there is substantial brick and mortar (retail sportsbooks) is a rather complicated question.
