You may not have heard about it, but Rush Street Interactive, and their BetRivers Sportsbook, started taking bets in Delaware during the final week of 2023.
That was a soft launch — and just a week later, BetRivers and the Delaware Lottery announced that a full-scale online betting platform is now live.
To be clear, this is not the launch of sports betting in Delaware. Nicknamed The First State, they seized the opportunity to conduct sports wagering just weeks after the Supreme Court struck down PASPA. At the time, William Hill was the sole provider of wagering in the state.
Now, five years later, Delaware is sticking with the same formula despite the growth around them.
In August, the state’s bidding process to determine who controls sports betting, encapsulated the end result. 888 Holdings, the parent company of William Hill, dropped their bid and left just 1 company in the running, BetRivers. Per the contract, they will be the provider for the next five years.
“We are honored to collaborate with the Delaware Lottery team and the state’s three casinos to offer consumers who are geo-located in Delaware with safe, convenient, and innovative online gaming experiences,” Richard Schwartz, CEO of RSI, added during the soft launch last week.
State legislature eyes competition
While the next five years are spoken for, there is hope that Delaware will consider opening its market up by 2029.
Earlier this month, the state house tasked a working group with analyzing how best to conduct sports betting, now that more and more states are allowing their citizens to wager. Their report concluded that a competitive market would boost their tax revenue.
State Representative William Bush noted that, "[f]rom our review and our perspective, we think that having more is better for lotteries, because it creates more competition, it ensures that everyone has a good platform, and it allows more options for the public to choose what they want to do."
