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Florida’s sports betting market is officially one year old as it launched in November 2023. This anniversary made it the perfect time to look back on the year that was. Was it a success? Average? Disappointment? We’ll recap it all here so stick with us.
Legal Issues Stunted Florida’s Market
While it’s been one year since Florida went live with legal sports betting, it wasn’t a concurrent year. For much of the time, the market was offline as legal issues stopped the Seminoles Tribe from operating Hard Rock Bet.
Let’s start from the beginning: the state of Florida opted into an agreement with the Native American tribe in 2021. Not just any agreement, but a 30-year-old one. This agreement gave the tribe the exclusive rights to own the sports betting market in the state. Yes, a monopoly — in the third-most populous state in the country.
The reason why Hard Rock Bet stayed offline for 2021 and 2022 was because of a legal fight over that monopoly. It wasn’t just one fight with one party, but multiple. There were pari-mutuel companies that went to the Florida Supreme Court and said the mobile sports betting app violated a 2018 constitutional amendment that bans expanding casino gambling without voter approval. The court intimately rejected their request.
But the biggest complaint was over the online sports betting component. In a federal lawsuit courtesy of West Flagler Associates, they said Hard Rock violated the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act, since it allows gambling off tribal lands.
In a stroke of genius, the Seminoles created a hub-and-spoke model to take in online bets — even from bettors outside of tribal lands. They did so by placing servers that take these bets on tribal lands, thus technically following the IGR Act but in a roundabout way.
Ultimately, that case went to the United States Supreme Court — the highest order of all. They refused to hear the case in June 2023, thus ending the legal fight. Hard Rock Bet has been live ever since, and the legal fighting has completely halted (the Seminoles and West Flagler agreed to drop the case too). It’s been nothing but blue skies ever since then.
Hard Rock Bet Leaves Their Mark On The Industry
Once the legal fight ended in June, Hard Rock turned all its attention to marketing. The brand and app used the start of the NFL season — the peak time for betting — to really establish their identity, not just in Florida, but countrywide.
If you were watching NFL games this season, it was hard not to see their adverts. Many of those commercials featured Post Malone and the slogan “roll with us.” It was a national campaign too because Hard Rock Bet is available outside of Florida. States such as Arizona, Indiana, New Jersey, Ohio, Tennessee, and Virginia also license the app to in-state bettors.
The question is, how successful were these ads? Well, we don’t know. The Seminoles don’t have to report numbers in the same way commercial operators like DraftKings or FanDuel do. That’s one of the perks of being a Native American-operated company and not being public like those two.
But there is other data that helps level-set where Hard Rock ranks in the mobile app pecking order. The data comes via Eilers & Krejcik Gaming, one of the leading research companies of the industry. According to them, Hard Rock Bet’s market share is 5 percent nationally. That’s good enough for fourth nationally, a solid number given the late start in the Sunshine State.
The report went on to praise this big jump. It said: “Hard Rock was ranked 26th in the 1H22 edition of the report but has tracked upwards ever since. Testers specifically praised the app’s live betting, loading times, and high uptime cash-out.” We wish there was more data but Hard Rock Bet is notoriously mum about it. Still, we wouldn’t fade EK&G. They’re the best in the business at this stuff.
Has Florida’s Model Opened The Door For Other Tribes?
We have to go back to that hub-and-spoke model cause it has the potential to spread elsewhere. You see, there are a number of states where sports betting is run exclusively via local tribes. Sports betting in Kansas, North Dakota, Washington, and Wisconsin come to mind, but there are others.
In all of these states, betting HAS to happen on tribal land, mostly at the physical locations. If there is online betting, that too has to be done within proximity to the actual casinos.
This essentially puts a cap on the betting market. It’s simply too much friction to have to drive to a casino and place bets. You see it in other states, bettors overwhelmingly want to gamble via an app instead.
It hasn’t happened quite yet, but it’s widely believed some tribes in these states will adopt the Seminole’s model to accept online wagers from anywhere in the state. The contagion can reshape the sports betting industry as we know it. This will be one of the big stories to monitor in 2025 so check back here for regular updates.
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