BetRivers Sportsbook is officially coming to Michigan! Rush Street Interactive came to an agreement with the Little River Casino Resort in the town of Manistee, which is close to Lake Michigan in the northwestern part of the state.
This partnership will make Michigan the fourth approved state for mobile and online BetRivers, which is also likely to add Iowa in the near future. BetRivers has been up and running in Pennsylvania, Indiana, and Colorado. Their sister brand, SugarHouse, has been in operation in New Jersey since 2018. BetRivers also has retail sportsbooks in New York and Illinois.
Entering the Michigan market was a logical step for BetRivers and it was simply about finding a partner. They’ve found one with the Little River Band of the Ottawa Indians and will have the opportunity to launch both an online sportsbook and an online casino in the state.
A retail sportsbook is expected to open sometime in Q3 of 2020 and BetRivers will be among the operators patiently waiting to fire up online betting in the state. Given the slowdowns for COVID-19 and the allocation of time and resources elsewhere to fight the pandemic, mobile betting in Michigan was put on the backburner.
Like so many states, sports betting has been seen as a way to produce an inflow of cash to assist governments in getting their budgets back on track, so it would not be a big surprise if The Wolverine State gets mobile and online wagering up rather quickly as things move forward.
This looks to be a good pairing for both the casino and also the sports betting operator.
“The successful track record of Rush Street Interactive as a provider of in-casino sportsbooks in Pennsylvania, New York and Illinois, was very significant to us when we chose them as our partner,” said Andrew Gentile, General Manager of Little River Casino Resort. “Rush Street’s ability to provide a road map of how they’ve enabled other land-based casinos to operate market-leading sportsbooks kept us from having to reinvent the wheel.”
Rush Street Interactive launched the PlaySugarHouse Casino in New Jersey in 2016 and has been able to modify its offerings to include sports betting since PASPA was overturned in May 2018.
As more states adopt sports betting legislation, Rush Street Interactive and BetRivers will be a prominent participant in those jurisdictions. Michigan actually launched retail sports betting in March 2020 when MGM Grand Detroit started taking wagers during the second week of college basketball conference tournaments. Sadly, the coronavirus outbreak took hold in the US and retail betting at the kiosks and the sportsbook went on hold. As things open back up, Michigan’s sports betting economy will as well, which is why BetRivers is pushing forward quickly with plans to get that retail location going at Little River Casino Resort.
BetRivers will continue to add new markets and we’ll continue to cover all of the legal sports betting news right here at ATS.
