Online sports betting sites will legally launch in Vermont in January, but not everyone who wanted in, at least initially, will be accepting action in the Green Mountain State.
Vermont Gov. Phil Scott and Department of Liquor and Lottery commissioner Wendy Knight announced last week that statewide mobile sports betting will start on Jan. 11 and that DraftKings, Fanatics Sportsbook, and FanDuel would be the three authorized operators.
“I first proposed Vermont legalize sports wagering several years ago, and it’s good to see it come to fruition,” Scott said in a press release. “Vermonters and visitors alike will soon be able to access a regulated sports wagering marketplace, which will come with important consumer protections and generate revenue for the State.”
The online sportsbooks were chosen through a competitive bidding process, with the amount of revenue for the state an important part of the criteria. Yet Vermont’s sports betting law allowed for up to six operators, and five bookmakers put in bids for access to the New England state.
DraftKings, Fanatics, and FanDuel were the three winning bidders, which means the other two operators that bid, BetMGM and Penn Sports Interactive (the company behind ESPN BET), were technically the losers.
So why the three but not the other two? Knight provided some insight in an email to Covers last week and rejected the notion that the other two were, well, “rejected.”
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Sharing is caring
According to the commissioner, DraftKings and Fanatics will share 31% of their online sports betting revenue with the state, while FanDuel will pay 33%. BetMGM, however, proposed a “variable revenue share based on the number of operators selected,” Knight said, which the state had already indicated was not acceptable during the question-and-answer period for Vermont’s request for proposals (RFP).
That weighed on BetMGM’s overall score, the commissioner added, although she said she didn’t consider that the operator’s bid was rejected.
“We gave their proposal careful consideration,” Knight wrote. “Ultimately, they were not selected because their bid scoring was considerably lower than the other three operators because of the unacceptable revenue share proposal.”
Paperwork problems
The bid from Penn/ESPN BET, meanwhile, “was deemed materially non-compliant and not accepted,” Knight said. This was because some required documentation was not included in its proposal despite being required by the RFP.
“Therefore, the Department didn't ‘reject’ the bid from Penn Sports,” Knight said. “It was not evaluated or considered because it was not deemed a compliant bid by the State department responsible for State contracting and RFPs as per State policy.”
Knight also said that Vermont’s responsible gambling program and self-exclusion list will be available in time for the Jan. 11 launch.
