DraftKings
Fantasy sports have been around in some form since the 1970s, starting with the original Rotisserie Baseball. DraftKings helped completely turn that friendly game into a billion-dollar juggernaut of a sports gambling industry.
Hard to look ahead and see exactly how DraftKings is going to change the sports betting industry, now that it’s operating sportsbooks across the United States. Expectations, however, are high. This is, after all, the company that began as a home office business run by three former employees of Vistaprint.
It was the first fantasy sports company to receive an investment by a major American sports league. And it was a part of a public merger that saw the company evaluation top $3 billion. And all in less than 10 years.
FanDuel
It wasn’t all that long ago when FanDuel was locked in a series of legal battles all across the country, fighting for its life as a daily fantasy sports provider. Verdict: FanDuel has won.
There were DFS wins in jurisdiction after jurisdiction, and that fight, coupled with the fight between New Jersey and the federal government that ultimately led to the Supreme Court’s landmark ruling in 2018, has helped turn FanDuel into one of the giants of the American sports betting industry.
Founded in 2009 by a group of people who hoped to change the way we played fantasy sports, FanDuel has expanded to sports betting. So, when Colorado sports betting went live on May 1, 2020, FanDuel was there. On day one, like in so many other states, it was leading the way. Both in the speed in which it came to market and as a leader in sports betting innovation.
BetMGM
There are few names in the entertainment and gaming industry bigger than MGM. From its origins as a film company, a resort and betting giant was born in the 1970s. It now has 10 properties on the Las Vegas Strip, casinos and resorts in another seven U.S. states, and a total of seven casinos and resorts in China.
But it wasn’t until Colorado legalized sports gambling and the Midnight Rose Hotel and Casino in Cripple Creek signed a deal to have MGM manage their mobile sports betting that customers in the Centennial State were able to enjoy BetMGM.
The name is big and reputable, the sports wagering associated with MGM goes back decades, and its entry into present-day U.S. sports betting is backed by a joint online venture between MGM and GVC called Roar Digital. It’s one of the world’s largest sports betting and gaming technology groups, with operations in 18 different countries.
The two companies came together in 2019 and created BetMGM. And in May 2020, BetMGM began taking sports wagers in Colorado.
888Sport
When Colorado sports betting went live on May 1, a host of top-name sportsbooks were ready to pounce. Naturally, 888sport, first founded in the U.K. in 2008 and one of the very first British bookmakers to make it across the Atlantic, is joining them.
The Colorado market is saturated by big-name American brands. But with 888sport, bettors in the Centennial State get a book with more than a decade of experience bringing international sports betting to its customers across the globe.
As the sports betting face of a much larger online and mobile casino that has been around since 1997, 888sport has a stellar reputation as a true innovator in the industry.
bet365
Starting as a series of small betting shops in 1974, bet365 launched its worldwide gaming operations in 2000 when founder Denise Coates developed her own proprietary betting platform, which stands to this day in stark contrast to what many other sports betting companies do.
That same platform still powers bet365 20 years later, and with obvious great success. It now has more than 45 million customers across the globe, takes in nearly $3 billion in annual revenue, and has offices on three different continents, including an office in New Jersey, where it first entered the U.S. market.
Now, bet365 has come to Colorado, where it brings worldwide reach, sports betting innovation, and host of options and rewards for its new Rocky Mountain customers.
BetRivers
Chicago-based Rush Street Interactive, the parent company of BetRivers, has been opening new online sportsbooks just as fast as the state laws will allow. They got started in New Jersey in 2018 shortly after the Supreme Court gave the Garden State the go-ahead on legalized sports betting.
They then moved into Pennsylvania when the Keystone state got its legal house in order. In October of 2019, BetRivers opened its online sportsbook in Indiana.
Rush Street and BetRivers were the first to open mobile sports wagering in Indiana. This after being the first to open an online casino in New Jersey three years ago, and the first to open a retail sportsbook in the state of New York in July of 2019. And when Colorado went live with sports betting on May 1, 2020, they were ready to begin taking bets that very first day.
FOX Bet
From an upstart fourth network that made its name on the back of the sitcoms Married… With Children and The Simpsons to one of the most powerful names in all of sports – we know FOX as the place to go for the NFL, Major League Baseball, Champions League Soccer, and NASCAR. It’s now hoping that you will soon think of FOX Bet as the place to go to make wagers on the NFL, Major League Baseball, and the rest of the world’s sports.
FOX Bet comes to us courtesy another well-known name – PokerStars. FOX Bet is the creation of a partnership between FOX Sports and The Stars Group, the parent company of PokerStars. For a cool $236 million, FOX bought a 4.99% stake in The Stars Group, and the sports betting juggernaut was born.
William Hill
f you are a regular sports bettor, or even if you just place the occasional wager, you undoubtedly know the name William Hill. The bookmaking company is a giant in the industry, with operations in 10 different countries and more than 12,000 employees worldwide. And we also all owe a tip of the cap to the man, William Hill, the grandfather of modern sports betting.
In 1934 in London, he founded the first postal and telephone betting service. Sports betting had been around for generations by then, but William Hill revolutionized how you could place wagers.
PlaySugarHouse
Rush Street Interactive is already in Colorado through its partnership with BetRivers. But because when Colorado lawmakers made sports betting legal, they did so by making the market the most open in the nation, thus it’s quite likely that Rush Street is going to have another one of its sportsbooks – PlaySugarHouse – open in Colorado.
With more than 30 casinos in the state and almost all of them in line to get retail sports betting, the market is filled with online partnership opportunities. That’s where the PlaySugarHouse sportsbook comes in. The opportunity for Rush Street to put more eggs in the ever-expanding basket that is Colorado is likely to be too much to resist.