I was just notified that the SuperBook closed their online betting from Colorado and several other states as of July 19th. A few months ago they closed their sports book at The Lodge Casino in Blackhawk, Colorado, abruptly and without an explanation. My question is, what gives? Did they violate a regulation? Will this affect their standing with the Nevada Gaming Board?
No, the SuperBook did nothing nefarious. Nor is it in any hot water with regulators. It's simply another victim of the cutthroat competition in the online sports betting business (OSB).
LegalSportsReport has an excellent feature on this subject, to which we're indebted. (LSR also broke the news of recent sports betting-related layoffs at Penn Entertainment, a story the mainstream media has been loath to pick up.)
To some of us, the news that SuperBook was operating outside of Nevada comes as a surprise. That’s how under the radar it was flying. And in sports betting, being a near-unknown brand is anything but good.
SuperBook snuck in the revelation of its closure at the very end of last week’s news cycle: at 8:38 p.m. on a Friday, to be exact. Nor did it do so via press release; rather, it came by way of a tweet comprising two sentences and a graphic that informed readers it had closed almost 40 minutes earlier and that they could withdraw their funds at any time.
Thus ends SuperBook operations in eight states. The news was overshadowed by BetFred’s simultaneous pullback from Maryland and Ohio, part of the twilight of that particular betting service.
SuperBook didn’t have to explain why it was striking its online tent. Its revenue performance spoke for itself.
In Arizona, for instance, its April market share was 0.1 percent. In OSB, having a few percentage points of market share generally translates into revenue in the mere hundreds of thousands. At a tenth of one point, SuperBook’s share would have meant microscopic returns on investment and it’s highly doubtful that its owners wanted to continue at such a loss.
SuperBook’s strongest market was New Jersey, where it garnered three-tenths of a percent. In some cases, like Virginia, the revenue was as low as a hundredth of a percent of market share. With numbers like those, the death rattle must have been deafening.
Colorado figures aren’t available, but In retrospect, closing the retail outlet of SuperBook in Blackhawk was an obvious cut-your-losses move.
There is less than zero indication that SuperBook has done anything untoward and its brick-and-mortar iteration will undoubtedly continue to prosper at Westgate Las Vegas for many years to come with the continued blessing of the Nevada Gaming Control Board.
