- Betfred has announced a promotional partnership with the Iowa Wild of the American Hockey League (AHL).
- The AHL is the second tier North American hockey circuit behind the National Hockey League (NHL).
- Betfred is now live in six US states and recently launched in Ontario.
Betfred Sports is continues to expand their their US market reach. They started their US subsidiary in 2019 and quickly launched in Colorado and Iowa. They’ve since announced that Maryland and Ohio are next up. They’ve also launched in Pennsylvania–a market fraught with potential though limited by an absurdly high tax rate–along with Arizona and Louisiana. Betfred Sports is also coming to the Silver State of Nevada and will be operating the sportsbook at the Virgin Hotels Las Vegas property.
Iowa has been a successful market for Betfred and they’ve done it by following a similar promotional playbook to the one they executed in Colorado. In Colorado, they have sports betting sponsorship deals with the Denver Broncos and Colorado Rockies. In Iowa, they’ve partnered with the minor league baseball Iowa Cubs. They’ve just announced a new partnership in Iowa, this time with the Iowa Wild of the American Hockey League (AHL).
Iowa might not be tradionally known as ‘hockey country’, but the Wild have been very successful. Here’s a recap of their accomplishments from the Betfred press release:
The Iowa Wild played their inaugural season in 2013 and are celebrating their 10th anniversary season in 2022-2023. The Iowa Wild has had many accomplishments over the last ten years, winning the AHL’s Corporate Sales Department of the Year (2015-16, 2016-17, 2017-18), Social Media Department of the Year (2016-17, 2018-19), Best Fan Experience (2014-15, 2018-19) and Team of the Year in the 2018-2019 season. They play and are based out of Wells Fargo Arena, a state of the art 16,000 seat arena in downtown Des Moines, Iowa.
Betfred is the exclusive sports betting partner of the team, and they’ll get promotional and marketing opportunities throughout a number of media channels. They’ll also have a significant marketing presence on gamedays at the Wells Fargo Arena. Here’s some comments from Brent Arnold, Senior Director of Sales, of the Iowa Wild about the partnership:
“We are excited to announce Betfred as our exclusive partner in the Sportsbook category. We look forward to the tremendous addition Betfred will bring to our Iowa Wild fan experience.”
Bryan Bennett, Chief Operating Officer of Betfred, is excited to be involved with the Iowa Wild:
“We’re extremely proud of our partnership with the Iowa Wild and are excited to be part of the expansive American Hockey League community. We recently launched our new betting app in Iowa, and we knew this would be an amazing opportunity to continue investing in the state. We look forward to getting started and providing Wild fans an engaging experience for the upcoming season.”
Iowa might not be the first place that comes to mind when you think of sports betting, but they’ve done a solid job. Unlike many other states, Iowa took a very thoughtful approach to creating their regulatory framework. Their goal was to create an industry that could benefit the state in a variety of ways. That’s a marked contrast from states like New York, who design the sports betting regulations to benefit only themselves and their cronies.
Betfred USA is the wholly owned US subsidiary of Betfred Group, a UK-based bookmaker that owns and operates over 1,400 betting shops in the UK with over 50 years of experience. They’re currently operational in Arizona, Iowa, Pennsylvania, Louisiana, Washington, and Colorado, with Nevada, Maryland, Virginia and Ohio pending regulatory approval.
