The time for celebrating has come for the state of Michigan. Online sports betting begins on Friday January 22 at 12 p.m. ET. Nine sportsbooks will launch at that time to take bets on the websites or through the mobile apps.
Michigan also approved online casino gaming, so the apps that have those capabilities will also be able to allow users to play slot machines or their favorite table games.
This has been a long time coming for Michigan. Retail sports betting began just before the COVID-19 pandemic shut everything down in advance of March Madness. Delays followed for the launch of online and mobile sports betting as other more pressing concerns took precedence for the state’s officials and lawmakers.
The Michigan Gaming Control Board made the announcement on Tuesday that it had authorized nine operators to go live in the state at noon on January 22.
The nine operators allowed to go live with mobile and online sports betting on Friday are:
Barstool (Greektown)
BetMGM (MGM Grand Detroit)
BetRivers (Little River)
DraftKings (Bay Mills)
FanDuel (Motor City)
Golden Nugget (Ojibwa)
TwinSpires (formerly BetAmerica) (Island)
William Hill (Leelanau Sands)
WynnBet (Kewadin)
Of those nine, only Barstool will not have the launch of an online casino on Friday.
This is a significant development for the state of Michigan. While the largest and densest population is in Detroit, which has Barstool, BetMGM, and FanDuel locally, the launch of online and mobile sports betting will greatly help an operator like DraftKings, who partnered with the Bay Mills Indian community well north of the Detroit metro area.
PointsBet and Fox Bet are noticeably absent from the list, but they should launch shortly as well, giving Michigan 11 different sports betting operators that can be accessed from anywhere in the state.
Michigan is a Remote Registration state, so users can sign up from anywhere. It also means that out of state users can sign up, too, but those users must be physically located in Michigan to place a deposit or make bets.
Michigan actually legalized sports betting in 2019 to become the 20th state to legalize betting and only the fifth to allow online casinos.
The timing could have been better, had it not been for the COVID-19 pandemic, but the online sportsbooks are up and running before Super Bowl LV, prior to conference tournaments and March Madness, and with most of the NHL and NBA seasons left to go.
Retail sports betting has been taking place in Michigan for the last few months, but the population is scarcer in many of the areas with tribal casinos, so it was limited to those willing to venture out to place bets in-person at the wagering counter or at the kiosks. We’ll see an explosion of sports betting in Michigan as we go forward and it should lead to some very impressive numbers in the month of February.
If you want to know how to bet on sports in Michigan, we have all the details for you and you can check out the best online sportsbooks to evaluate the different operators to find the ones that best fit your needs.
