Susana Castillo, a spokeswoman for Mayor Bowser, told The Washington Post that the mayor received the budget bill (which goes far beyond sports betting) on Thursday and has 10 business days to consider it, meaning he has until July 25 to sign it. If he doesn’t, the bill will automatically go into effect.
FanDuel replaced Gambet DC in April, a failed attempt to get sports betting off the ground citywide. BetMGM is set to join them, with a citywide launch that was supposed to begin on Monday (previously online was only available to gamblers within a two-block radius of Nationals Park, where the company operates a brick-and-mortar sportsbook). But the BetMGM app on Tuesday still said BetMGM would only allow bets near Nationals Park. BetMGM canceled a previously announced event Monday to promote its expansion of services in DC.
Caesars Sportsbook was also reportedly planning to open citywide on Monday, but as of Tuesday said gamblers would need to be located near Capital One Arena, where it operates a brick-and-mortar sportsbook.
FanDuel said its brick-and-mortar sportsbook at Audi Field is continuing to accept bets despite the suspension of its online operations.
GambetDC, Washington’s first attempt at a citywide mobile sports betting app, was a dismal failure, bringing in just $4.3 million in revenue over four years, well below the $84 million projected. To remedy this, Greek company Intralot, which was awarded a five-year, no-bid contract by the DC Council in 2019 to develop GambetDC, subcontracted with FanDuel to replace GambetDC, bringing in $1.9 million in revenue for the city in the first 30 days alone.
Last month, the DC Council gave final approval to a $21 billion budget for fiscal year 2025, which included a bill to expand sports betting services in the city as it competes for up to seven licenses. However, in a letter sent to Speaker Phil Mendelson on June 5, before the Council approved the new budget, FanDuel President Christian Genetsky said that if the city opens up sports betting to other companies, FanDuel would terminate its contract with Intralot and pay the city 40% of its gambling revenues, but would instead move forward as an independent operator, paying the city only 20% of its gambling revenues and the cost of obtaining a gambling license.
Essentially, FanDuel would be able to keep more of the revenue under the terms of the city’s sports betting expansion, which now just needs to be signed by Governor Bowser to become law.
BetMGM was the first to announce its expansion in the city, while DraftKings, which is available in 25 states and is one of the most used sports betting apps in the country, said on June 25 that it looked forward to “the potential opportunity to introduce our mobile sportsbook product to D.C. sports fans.”
The proposed budget allows new Class A sports betting licensees to offer online sports betting to people within D.C. borders starting Monday, but because Governor Bowser has yet to sign the budget, the expansion of online sports betting is at least temporarily blocked. This may be why BetMGM and other new entrants have yet to offer sports betting citywide.
