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There has been a sharp strategic split between US casino companies that have embraced online gambling and those that have resisted it, leading many of the holdouts to focus on international markets. Soon, United States residents may not have to look abroad to see the divide, though. They may only have to cross a state line to see a very different landscape when it comes to gaming.
Companies like the Las Vegas Sands Corporation and Wynn Resorts are moving to carve out fiefdoms of a sort in places where the regulation of online casinos seems unlikely. They are doing so by choosing such places as targets of investments into physical properties.
The entrenchment of companies with that approach in US states could erect firewalls to online casino expansion. Conversely, online gambling companies—and retail operators with strong online brands—will want to focus their efforts on the places where expansion seems more likely.
Wynn’s demonstration of the geographic dominance strategy
Attempts to dominate a geographical region with a product or service that consumers interact with offline is nothing novel, either in general or to the gambling industry. A recent example of this is Wynn’s push to be a sole operator in the United Arab Emirates.
According to Suzanne Rowan Kelleher of Forbes, regulators in the UAE have decided to halt the issuance of any further casino licenses in the country after giving Wynn a license in October 2024. For the foreseeable future, Wynn will be the only licensed gambling operator in the nation.
Wynn’s casino will be the first in the UAE and a significant development in an Islamic state where attitudes toward gambling are sour. Those same attitudes could not only keep out Wynn’s competitors but stall the regulation of online casino play indefinitely.
That scenario becomes more likely given Wynn’s recent movements in the online gambling business.
Wynn’s online gambling footprint shrinks
Since late 2023, Wynn has been pulling back its spend in online gambling. Wynn shut down its online casinos in Michigan, Pennsylvania and West Virginia, stating that it prefers to offer online gaming in the same places it also has brick-and-mortar properties.
Wynn isn’t the only company that treats online gambling as a tool to drive traffic to its land-based casinos. The Cordish Companies have taken a similar approach and company leadership has been vocal about that stance.
Cordish highlights divide on online casinos
In April, Cordish Gaming Group President Rob Norton discussed the subject of online casino regulation during an industry event. Norton explained that Cordish opposes the expansion of online casino regulation because the company doesn’t “believe that’s the best path forward in the gaming space.”
During the same event, Cordish Cos. CEO David Cordish affirmed that in places where legal online casinos exist, the company would not spend on facilities to the same extent. The map of the US might consist of those places and places where investment in physical casinos is heavier.
Great examples could soon be Illinois and Texas.
Texas as a Sands target
There’s little mystery about whether the Las Vegas Sands Corp. is interested in developing a casino in the Dallas metropolitan area. The corporation and the controlling Adelson family have been active in terms of political donations in the state.
Additionally, the Adelson family has a majority stake in the Dallas Mavericks NBA franchise, strengthening ties with former Mavericks owner Mark Cuban. Cuban has shared his interest in collaborating with casino developers in the city.
While Sands seems on-board with legalizing online sports wagering in Texas, there has been no push for regulating online casinos in the state. That could be at least partially due to the influence of the Adelsons and Sands.
The late Sheldon Adelson was famously opposed to online gambling, a stance that Cordish credited for his views. If successful, a push to legalize in-person gambling in Texas might mean that not only would Sands look to dominate the state’s entertainment industry but that Texas would be off-limits to online casino play.
Besides the pushes by Sands and Wynn, Texas and the UAE have one other thing in common. That is popular opposition to gambling on moral, perhaps even religious (albeit a different Abrahamic religion) grounds.
Texas’ population would represent a significant loss for online casino operators. That could provide even more motivation for them to push for regulation in places where companies like Sands and Wynn are absent, like Illinois.
Illinois represents land of opportunity for online casinos
Illinois presents a strong contrast to Texas in nearly every significant way in respect to gambling. Not only is the partisan divide of the political spectrum the complete opposite of Texas’ in Illinois but the state is open to gaming in almost every way but regulated online casinos currently.
Illinois is home to several brick-and-mortar casinos in addition to racetracks. The Illinois Lottery sells its tickets online and online sports wagering is also legal in the state.
There have been attempts in recent years to regulate online casino play and the largest potential obstacle to that end seems to be the state’s video lottery terminal industry. Illinois businesses with licenses to sell alcoholic beverages and tobacco products can offer these slot-like VLTs to customers and thousands of such terminals operate within Illinois’ system.
Companies that already operate online sportsbooks in Illinois, like DraftKings and FanDuel, also have physical presences in Illinois but unlike Sands and Wynn, they don’t seem to view online casino play as the wrong path forward for gaming. If states like Texas become strongholds of land-based casino operators, that could motivate the companies invested in online gambling to push harder for expansion in places like Illinois.
As Cordish alluded to, such companies “should be advocating for what’s good for their business.” His company, Sands, and Wynn are doing the same thing, just with a different end goal in mind. The prevailing winds are pointing toward individual states’ gambling frameworks mirroring those wide discrepancies.
