Here Comes Colorado & Illinois

Happy Monday Tuesday, everyone. Remember, the best part of having a Monday off isn’t the three-day weekend but the shortened workweek that follows.

As usual, we’re here to recap what happened in the sports betting world last week.

Pennsylvania gets two launches

The Pennsylvania online betting industry got way more interesting last week with the launch of two pretty big products.

The first significant launch was the entrance of DraftKings Sportsbook to Pennsylvania. DraftKings will take on longtime rival FanDuel Sportsbook to see how much market share it can capture. FanDuel had more than half of the mobile handle share in September, which was just its second full month of operations.

It won’t be long before the seventh mobile sportsbook joins the state. Kindred’s Unibet brand plans to start its soft launch today.

And while it isn’t sports betting-related, the launch of online poker from The Stars Group’s PokerStars was also a pretty big deal.

Illinois finally moving forward

It’s been a long four-plus months for players and Bitcoin sports betting enthusiasts in the Prairie State since the state passed a major gambling expansion without much movement.

But sports betting operators can finally begin applying for sports betting licenses beginning next month, the Chicago Sun-Times quoted the Illinois Gaming Board.

That said, there’s still no formal timeline for launch.

Colorado joins legal ranks

The Rocky Mountain state became the 19th to legalize sports betting in the US despite a vote that was much closer than anticipated.

We likely won’t see the first bets placed in Colorado until May 2020. The state includes full mobile betting and an operator-friendly 10% tax rate on revenue. There are 33 potential mobile licenses up for grabs based on the state’s 33 land-based casinos.

FanDuel beating expectations

Official state figures show that FanDuel Sportsbook is performing well. Still, parent company Flutter confirmed that performance when it upgraded guidance for its expected US losses for the year based on FanDuel’s performance.

Active US customer growth is currently running ahead of expectations, Flutter CEO Peter Jackson said. Mobile sportsbook rollouts into Pennsylvania, West Virginia and Indiana had encouraging results, he added.

US losses are expected to hit $51 million to $58 million this year, down from $71 million previously.

Meanwhile, The Stars Group announced its Fox Bet business is performing in line with expectations. Week-to-week customer activity levels have been encouraging, the company said.