ARIZONA DEPARTMENT OF GAMING CONTINUES TO APPROVE NEW SPORTSBOOKS

New Arizona sportsbooks are being approved by the Arizona Department of Gaming all the time. This past Friday, BetRivers received its approval from the ADG. On Friday, the application from Rush Street Interactive was approved, which clears the BetRivers Sportsbook for launch in the state. Rush Street Interactive has partnered with the Indoor Football League’s Arizona Rattlers for market access.

Ever since the market opened on September 9th, nine Arizona sports betting operators have gone live. Even with less than half of Arizona’s possible online sportsbooks having launched, the state is showing a significant sports betting market. Arizona was able to record the fourth-most transactions in markets according to GeoComply during the initial four weeks of the NFL betting season.

This showed an increase of 122% more transactions during this time period than in the previous year of 2020. And, Arizona represented 36.9 million of those transactions.

The Managing Director of Gaming for GeoComply, Lindsay Slader has stated that the data confirms that the first posted week of sports bets in Arizona was not a fluke. And that the state has established itself as the fourth largest sports betting market in the country.

In early September, there were seven sportsbooks ready to go live in the Arizona sports betting market. The initial sportsbooks that launched were some of the biggest names in sports betting in the country, which includes stalwarts like DraftKings and FanDuel.

The Arizona Department of Gaming is still going through sports betting applications as they come in. As such, TwinSpires has also been able to launch in the market. Now, BetRivers will be launching in the state soon. The Arizona Department of Gaming will be handing out licenses as they are able to approve operators.

The legislation for Arizona sports betting has allowed for twenty licenses for online sportsbooks. Ten of these licenses have been set aside for Arizona’s professional sports organizations and ten for tribes. Eighteen of these licenses have been awarded by the Arizona Department of Gaming through the initial period for license application.

At this time, there are still two slots open for those licenses that are attached to professional sports organizations. There are still Arizona sportsbooks that have not yet gone live in the state.

The spots that are not yet live are:

• Bally Bet
• Betway
• BetFred
• Fubo Gaming
• SuperBook
• Golden Nugget

There are also not yet announced sportsbooks that will be launching from: the Tohono O’odham Nation, the Navajo Nation, and the Arizona Coyotes. However, the state of Arizona is still facing a lawsuit from the Yavapai-Prescott Native American Tribe. This lawsuit that seeks to stop Arizona sports betting currently sits in Maricopa County Superior Court.

Back in September, Judge James Smith denied an initial request for a preliminary injunction. Back on September 27th, the tribe submitted an amended complaint against the Arizona Department of Gaming Director Ted Vogt and Arizona Governor Doug Ducey. The claim behind the lawsuit from the Yavapai-Prescott Tribe is that the expansion of gaming in Arizona was unconstitutional.

In recent weeks, the lawsuit has seen a relatively small amount of activity. And, in this past week, Arizona Governor Doug Ducey filed a motion to dismiss the case. A court order has asked for clarification on why Arizona Governor Ducey was not able to adequately represent the two tribes who filed the motion to intervene.

Written by Allie Nelson, our US Sports Betting Industry Expert. You can read more about our author's expertise here.