Golden Nugget, Barstool, Bally’s Awarded Mobile Sports Betting License in Virginia

It was announced by the company that Golden Nugget is to be given an online sports betting license by the Virginia Lottery. This is huge news as many were waiting to see if the gambling giant was going to attempt to expand into Virginia after its latest ventures in Michigan. The company is starting to make progress in more states and is trying to build its online revenue.

This will now be the 10th state that the Golden Nugget will be permitted to run online sports gambling in, which means that Golden Nugget can launch in a significant chunk of the states that have launched online sports betting.

Following that announcement Barstool Sportsbook and Bally’s were both awarded temporary permits as well by the Virginia Lottery. These are three sportsbooks that are not claiming a massive percentage of the sports betting market right now but are looking to expand.

Virginia Sports Betting Makeup

Golden Nugget, Barstool, and Bally’s join eight other sportsbooks that have been awarded licenses. The first to launch was FanDuel Sportsbook, gaining early access to the market due to a lucrative partnership with the Washington Football Team. After that, DraftKings, BetRivers, BetMGM, William Hill, and WynnBet have all received their licenses and launched their online platforms.

Golden Nugget, Barstool, and Bally’s sit alongside PointsBet and Bet365 as companies to be awarded licenses but are still waiting to launch in the state. Bringing the total to 11 licenses awarded out of a possible 17 under the current laws.

One interesting note is that none of these sportsbooks were required to have land-based partners. This is something that is not common in the sports betting world at the moment and made the registration process much easier for online sportsbooks.

Virginia Betting Market

The Virginia betting market has been pretty sizeable up and to this point. The sports betting handle for the last ten days of January following the FanDuel, DraftKings, BetRivers, and BetMGM launches was $59 million. That is a massive amount for a brand new state with limited operators in just ten days.

One thing that did help Virginia was the Super Bowl. Getting these sportsbooks operational and up before the Big Game was crucial in these explosive numbers that the state saw. These four sportsbooks, alongside William Hill, were all able to collect bets for the big game between the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and Kansas City Chiefs in February, as well.

It will be interesting to see the final numbers for February when the Virginia Lottery announces the statistics on the handle and revenue. The Super Bowl will surely give the first full month of sports betting in the state a massive boost.

Unfortunately, bettors in Virginia cannot bet on college sports that are located in their own state. This eliminates a huge amount of bets that could have been placed on the University of Virginia, Virginia Tech. Old Dominion, Liberty, James Madison, Richmond, George Mason, and more. February is a hot month for collegiate basketball as all the conferences have their championships. Virginia sacrificed a good chunk of the possible handle when making this regulation in the state.