Gaining a provisional license to offer sports betting in Virginia last week fit well with two key objectives for 888sport , senior vice president, head of US Yaniv Sherman told PlayUSA .
The Gibraltar-based company would become the seventh betting operator in Virginia , helping shade in an East Coast bloc and fortify an American foothold. 888 will enter the market with its Sports Illustrated brand and in a partnership with Virtual Entertainment Partners , a local 100% African-American female-owned business.
888 possesses licenses or market access deals in Colorado , Delaware , Indiana , Iowa , Michigan , Nevada , New Jersey and Pennsylvania . 888 also offers online casino and poker , but those are not legal in Virginia.
“Virginia was always sort of right up there, mostly because it starts to build a continuum between, if you look at the Northeast between New Jersey, the tri-state areas of New Jersey, Pennsylvania, New York and then going down to Virginia and Maryland, which we sort of regard as one market,” Sherman told PlayUSA on a video call from Isreal. “Originally, Maryland was supposed to be a bit further along at this point. They’re still figuring things out. We’re actively engaged and we’ve signed with a local partner there, too. In a sense, Virginia and Maryland are sort of connected as a [market] and also from a marketing perspective. So that’s one big market we’re focused on. Naturally, it’s a big sports market.” Virginia was also attractive, Sherman said, because it’s not yet flooded with competition . The District of Columbia has just a lottery-run platform and Caesars , and Maryland is still in the process of licensing, although a Baltimore Sun report said retail sports betting could begin on Friday at select casinos.
“[Virginia] has a relatively small number of operators, eventually. Right now it’s like seven or eight already live, but up to seven 17, any given moment, which is a lot lower than some of the other states,” he observed. “Colorado has 26, including [partner] SISportsbook. So, it’s a good healthy market. it was always high up there on […]
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