- Betfred has announced the opening of their long awaited sportsbook at the Mohegan Casino inside Virgin Hotels Las Vegas.
- Betfred was announced as the sportsbook operator in July 2020. The property opened on March 25, 2021.
- There’s been little explanation of why it took nearly three years for Nevada regulators to license Betfred, though they’ve made statements to suggest it was due to ‘COVID related delays.’
SportsInsider.com posted an article on July 16, 2020 reporting that Betfred would operate the sportsbook in the casino at Virgin Hotels Las Vegas. This was after the announcement that Mohegan Gaming & Entertainment would run the casino, making them the first tribal gaming presence in Las Vegas history. The Virgin Hotels Las Vegas property opened on March 25, 2021 and has been without a sportsbook ever since. For some inexplicable reason, it took Nevada gaming regulators until now to approve of Betfred’s status as sportsbook operator.
The good news is that the new sportsbook their new sportsbook aka Betfred at Mohegan Sun Sportsbook is open for business just in time for the Super Bowl. Sure, they should have been open long before last year’s Super Bowl but Betfred is taking the ‘high road’ and hasn’t appeared salty over the long delay–at least publicly. Then again, there’s no real upside to badmouthing the Nevada Gaming Commission and Gaming Control Board.
No surprise that the sportsbook is very well done:
Betfred at Mohegan Sun Sportsbook boasts luxury seating, an expansive video wall with high-definition TVs and over-the-counter wagering. Just in time for “The Big Game,” fans can take advantage of a variety of betting options including, parlays, in-game wagering, teasers, futures, props and more. The sportsbook is the first venture into Nevada by Betfred, one of the largest independent bookmakers in the world, founded in 1967 by brothers Fred and Peter Done. Betfred owns and operates over 1,400 betting shops in the United Kingdom and entered the U.S. sports betting market in 2019.
Reading that blurb further calls into question the long delay in licensing Betfred. Never mind the fact that they’ve been a well known and highly respected bookmaker in Europe for over 50 years. They’ve also been licensed in a growing list of US states. They were live and taking bets in Colorado before they were even announced as the operator at the Virgin Hotels property in Las Vegas. There’s no doubt that the timeline of Betfred’s long road to operating in Nevada didn’t help. Yet, while there obviously is some validity to the assertion that at least part of the delay in Betfred’s Nevada licensing was due to COVID keep in mind that Colorado put together the state’s regulatory framework for sports betting *and* got more than a half dozen sportsbook apps licensed via Zoom video during the nadir of the pandemic. Colorado managed to launch sports betting right on schedule (May 1, 2020) and we’re supposed to believe that COVID kept Nevada regulators from being able to sign off on Betfred for nearly three years? No one still believes that Nevada is the ‘gold standard’ for gaming regulation but the ‘COVID delay’ narrative is tough to buy.
Here’s a brief story from the local news on the Betfred opening:
