The sports betting scene in the United States is not only strong, but it is also one of the fastest-growing industries in the country. Bettors can have a dizzying number of bookmakers.
Although those bookmakers offer the main markets, such as moneyline, spreads, and totals, some of them are more established than others, which is vital for bettors to know when signing up to a new bookmaker.
With that in mind, we need to put together a list of our favorite sportsbooks and load in some context about their history and how long they’ve been in business.
Founded in 2012 in Boston, DraftKings was first introduced as a Daily Fantasy Sports brand, and its first festival was a head-to-head baseball festival presented on Major League Baseball’s opening day in 2012.
A year later, MLB invested in DraftKings, marking the first time an American professional sports team invested in DFS, a watershed moment that in some ways helped set the tone for the legalization of sports in the country five years later.
The company reached one million registered users in 2014 and expanded its foreign logo with its launch in the United Kingdom in 2015.
It burst onto the sports betting scene in 2018 after the Supreme Court ruled that the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act (PASPA), which allowed states to legalize sports betting, was unconstitutional. It was introduced in New Jersey in August 2018 and has since been introduced in 25 other states, as well as Washington D. C. and Puerto Rico.
The other big bet in North American sports betting, FanDuel was founded in 2009 as a DFS provider in Edinburgh, Scotland. It held its first DFS event in 2010.
She spent most of the mid-2010s raising funds and buying smaller businesses, which led her to expand and launch her mobile app in 2015. A year later, it announced its plans to merge with DraftKings, but the Federal Trade Commission sought an initial injunction. which blocked the merge.
When PASPA was declared unconstitutional, it merged with Paddy Power Betfair (an Irish-based bookmaker). It introduced a brick-and-mortar sportsbook at Meadowlands Racetrack in New Jersey before launching its first mobile sportsbook in New Jersey in September 2018.
It has since introduced a retail or mobile sports site in 25 other states, adding Washington D. C.
He is also one of the biggest names in online horse racing thanks to his FanDuel Racing app. It also has its own television network and FanDuel Faceoff, an app that allows you to play mobile games for genuine money.
Although MGM has been in the American gaming industry since 1987, it only introduced mobile sports betting in 2017, when it introduced an online sports betting site in Nevada, which it called PlayMGM at the time.
Once PASPA was canceled in 2018, MGM embarked on a similar partnership with GVC Holdings (a gambling operator in the United Kingdom) to help develop its PlayMGM mobile sports betting site, which launched in New Jersey in August 2018.
BetMGM signed partnerships with the NBA, NHL and MLB later that year, and announced its 2020 single-team partnership with the Denver Broncos.
PlayMGM was officially renamed BetMGM in 2019, which expanded mobile sports betting by offering new betting markets, as well as an early cash out feature and odds boosts. Mobile sports betting is now legal in 26 states, as well as Washington D. C. and Puerto Rico.
He is known for his dazzling advertising crusade celebrities such as Jamie Foxx, Kevin Garnett, and Tom Brady.
Like MGM, Caesars is one of the biggest names in gambling in North America before entering mobile sports betting. The company dates back to 1973 with the Eldorado Hotel in Reno and has since grown to include several retail casino brands such as Harrah’s, Horseshoe, and Tropicana.
In April 2021, Caesars acquired mobile sports company William Hill for $3. 7 billion and rebranded all William Hill offerings as Caesars Sportsbooks.
The app was officially launched in August in 8 states (Colorado, Indiana, Iowa, Michigan, New Jersey, Tennessee, Virginia and West Virginia) and rebranded existing William Hill apps in Illinois, Nevada and Washington D. C. This call replacement included a new advertisement. Campaign based on the comic J. B. Smoove and Eli and Peyton Manning.
In 2022, Caesars reached another major milestone by announcing a multi-year deal with the Cleveland Cavaliers that included the launch of a sports retail site at Rocket Mortgage FIeldHouse.
Bet365, the oldest bookmaker on this list, was founded in 2000 in Stoke-on-Trent, an open-air town in Staffordshire. It was officially introduced in 2001 as a platform for sports betting and advertising activity in England. While sports betting is not legal at the time, in the United States, sports betting and gambling were legal in England since the country passed the Betting and Gaming Act of 1960.
The company continued to expand in England and spent three years as a kit sponsor for Stroke City from 2012 to 2015, while also signing two kit sponsorship deals with Bulgarian clubs Ludogorets Razgrad and Slavia Sofia in 2016.
Once PASPA was canceled in the United States, Bet365 was introduced in New Jersey through a partnership with the Hard Rock Hotel and Casino in Atlantic City. It was introduced in Kentucky, Louisiana, Virginia, Ohio, New Jersey, Iowa, and Colorado in 2021, 22, and 23 before launching in Indiana and Pennsylvania in 2024.
It doesn’t have any physical presence in the United States, meaning its mobile sportsbook is the only way to bet with the brand.
In 2011, entrepreneur Michael Rubin introduced Fanatics, an online store offering sportswear, trading cards, and authorized collectibles, which temporarily accommodates the increased demand in the sportswear industry (some would say it’s too big).
The company purchased sportswear company Majestic, which led it to collaborate with Nike to make MLB box jerseys.
In May 2023, Fanatics acquired PointsBet (an American gambling company) for $150 million and ended up paying $225 million for the logo to beat DraftKings’ offer. Once the deal was closed, the sportsbook PointsBet (which is legal in 8 states) changed its name to Fanatics Sportsbook.
It is now available in 21 states and is known for providing one of the most productive welcome offers in sports betting, as it allows new users to claim a bonus bet every day for five consecutive days. It also offers bettors FanCash, which is the credit edition of the Fanatics site that can be used at the bookmaker or Fanatics retail site.
It is communicating the history of BetRivers without mentioning Pennsylvania, because the BetRivers lifestyle was born from the presence of two casinos located on opposite sides of the state. In 2009, the Rivers logo began with the launch of the Rivers Casino on Pittsburgh’s North Shore. A year later, the SugarHouse Casino opened on the Delaware River in Philadelphia.
On December 13, 2018, both casinos launched retail sports before officially launching them two days later. On May 28, 2019, SugarHouse introduced the state’s first mobile sportsbook, before SugarHouse purchased Rush Street Gaming (SugarHouse’s parent company) that summer, which led to the mobile sportsbook changing its name to BetRivers Sportsbook in October 2019.
BetRivers is now licensed in 14 states and is known for being more of a “small market” bookmaker, as it lacks some of the features of larger bookmakers and offers many odds boosts and promotions in local groups in a state.
While each and every sports fan had heard of ESPN, the logo entered uncharted territory in 2023 through the launch of ESPN BET.
ESPN BET’s adventure began in 2020 when Penn Entertainment bought a 36% stake in Barstool Sports and introduced Barstool Sportsbook, a sports betting app that sought to leverage Barstool’s presence in sports and entertainment.
The online sportsbook in 17 states in 2023, when Penn acquired all remaining shares and announced a deal with ESPN to launch ESPN BET, with Penn paying $1. 5 billion to obtain a logo license with ESPN for 10 years.
ESPN BET was officially launched on November 14, 2023 in the 17 states where Barstool Sportsbook existed. The bookmaker is known for its markets and promotions and offers ESPN personalities.
ClutchBet was introduced to North America in November 2022 when it was launched in Iowa. It is owned by BlueBet Holdings, a publicly traded Australian company established in 2015 that also operates the BlueBet and betr brands in Australia.
Although ClutchBet is only available in a few states and has yet to catch up in terms of popularity and market share, it has a solid sportsbook with a transparent design, giant betting markets, competitive odds, and strong promotions.
The foundations of Hard Rock Bet began in 1971 with the founding of the first Hard Rock Café in London. A second location opened in 1978 before the logo expanded across the United States in the 1980s and 1990s.
The logo entered the entertainment business when founder Peter Morton spent $80 million to open the Hard Rock Hotel near the Las Vegas Strip.
Since then, the company opened 10 more casinos and got into mobile sports gambling with the launch of Hard Rock Bet in New Jersey in 2019. Since then, it has expanded to six other states (Arizona, Florida, Indiana, Ohio, Tennessee, and Virginia). ) and is known for being the only cell sports site in Florida.
Photo via PAUL ELLIS/AFP Getty Images
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