We’ve been patiently waiting for the expansion of Barstool Sportsbook across the United States and it would appear that the process is ready to begin.
Penn National is a well-known name in sports betting circles, but when the gaming company partnered up with Barstool in January 2020, it only made sense to use the Barstool name and imagery for branding purposes. When you think about most of the target demographics of sports betting, there is a lot of crossover between those and the Barstool readership.
Ever since the partnership was finalized, the only state that Barstool Sportsbook was operating in was the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. That will change on November 5.
Colorado is the new frontier for Barstool Sportsbook with a license from the Ameristar Black Hawk Casino in Colorado. Ameristar Black Hawk is the biggest casino in the state of Colorado, which seems rather fitting that Barstool and its enormous media reach would be able to do business with the property. Ameristar Black Hawk is owned by Penn National Gaming.
Unfortunately, this will be a retail-only sportsbook for now, as the Barstool Sportsbook app is expected to launch early in 2021. With 98% of bets in the month of September placed using mobile apps or the sportsbook websites, things will be very slow out of the gate for Barstool.
If not for the COVID-19 pandemic, perhaps more travelers would have gone up to frequent the retail sportsbook, especially students from the University of Colorado and other young people in the Denver area. Black Hawk, Colorado is about 50 minutes west of Denver and about 55 minutes southwest of Boulder.
When the app does get up and running, it will be very interesting to see how Barstool stacks up against major operators already in Colorado, like DraftKings, William Hill, and FanDuel. Colorado is a remote registration state, which means that you can sign up and play from anywhere, and a major marketing push from Barstool has already begun and will only continue to get stronger as the app’s release date draws near.
