Wynn Resorts has taken the decision to close its iGaming and sports betting platform WynnBet across many of its jurisdictions, including: Arizona, Colorado, Indiana, Louisiana, New Jersey, Tennessee, Virginia and West Virginia.
Despite announcing the closure, Wynn has stated that its operations in Massachusetts and Nevada will be unaffected – while its New York and Michigan operations are still under review.
The move comes amidst a slew of closures of online sportsbooks in recent months, with MaximBet, Fubo and PointsBet all either exiting the market or selling their US operations.
Speaking of the closure, Julie Cameron-Doe, CFO of Wynn Resorts, said: “In light of the continued requirement for outsized marketing spend through user acquisition and promotions in online sports betting, we believe there are higher and better uses of capital deployment for Wynn Resorts shareholders.
“While we believe in the long-term prospects of iGaming, the dearth of iGaming legislation and the presence of numerous other investment opportunities available to us around the globe have led us to the decision to curtail our capital investment in WynnBet to focus primarily on those states where we maintain a physical presence.”
The closure of its operations across all of its US jurisdictions apart from Massachusetts, Nevada, Michigan and New York tells a tale, too. The markets that WynnBet remains live in are some of the country’s largest, while the company has only been live in Massachusetts for a few months, as the state only launched sports betting in March 2023.
Stephen Crystal, Founder and CEO of SCCG Management, exclusively commented on the news to Gambling Insider, saying: “For a public company like Wynn, whose asset base is in the billions, their foray into sports betting and mobile gaming with WynnBet had to be a tier one brand in the USA to justify the effort.
“The recent ESPNBet/Penn Gaming deal underscores how difficult achieving a tier one status will be, given the investment needed, the return on that investment and the overall impact on their balance sheet. It became a distinction in an otherwise stellar performance of their brick-and-mortar assets in Las Vegas, Massachusetts and Macau.”
The US sports betting and iGaming markets are getting more and more competitive with each passing month. The announcement that WynnBet is now reducing its operations in the US means another huge betting company has admitted that it can’t keep pace with like likes of DraftKings and FanDuel when it comes to operating across the US.
For its rivals, this is a chance to vacuum up more market share in the aftermath of WynnBet’s withdrawal – but for companies like ESPN & Penn and Fanatics, which are all looking to make an impact in the market very soon, this shows how hard this fight is becoming.
