TSG Gains Access To More States With Eldorado Partnership

The Stars Group (TSG) has announced a partnership deal with Eldorado Resorts, a leading casino entertainment company in the United States. The strategic alliance could see the parent company of PokerStars eventually offering online gambling in an additional eleven states across the country, including sports betting and online poker verticals.

Who Is Eldorado Resorts?

Eldorado Resorts was created in 2014 from a merger between MTR Gaming Group and Eldorado Holdco LLC. MTR Gaming Group initially brought numerous racino interests into the partnership, while Eldorado later acquired several casino properties, such as Tropicana Entertainment’s casino portfolio, and the Isle of Capri chain of casinos.

Nowadays, the company owns twenty-eight properties across eleven US states; Florida, Illinois, Colorado, Iowa, Indiana, Ohio, Missouri, Nevada, Mississippi, West Virginia and Louisiana. In total, Eldorado’s properties have more than 12,500 hotel rooms available, and offer over 30,000 slot machines and VLTs, as well as 800 table games.

Sports Betting Expansion

The Stars Group (TSG) currently has licenses to operate in the online gambling markets of Pennsylvania and New Jersey. The new deal with Eldorado Resorts therefore grants the gambling operator access to a total of 13 states in the country.

Nevertheless, the USA’s sports betting market has been growing exponentially since the Supreme Court this summer provided a positive decision in the Murphy v. NCAA case, thus paving the way for individual states to legalize sports betting within their borders, should they so wish. It would therefore seem that the lucrative sports betting market is the main focus of TSG’s strategy, with its popular BetStars brand taking center stage.

Commenting upon the sports betting aspect of their partnership, a statement released by TSG explained that it “will provide first skin access in states where Eldorado owns or operates more than one casino property and second skin access in all other applicable states.”

Eldorado Resorts Excited

Eldorado Resorts stands to accrue considerable benefits from partnering with a global gaming giant. As well as receiving a revenue share from the operator’s applicable offerings, Eldorado will also be granted around 1 million common shares with an upfront equity interest worth $25 million. Furthermore, an additional $5 million in common shares will be made available after TSG exercises its first iGaming option. As Eldorado CEO Gary Carano explains:

“The Stars Group is one of the world’s largest, most licensed and most geographically and product diverse publicly listed online gaming companies. We are excited to work with The Stars Group to capitalize on their proven ability to leverage their products to gain share in the growing market for online gaming.”

Global Gaming Giant

The Stars Group is the world’s biggest publicly traded internet gaming company, and currently has a market capitalization of $5.2 billion. Among the company’s many gaming brands is PokerStars, BetStars, Full Tilt, PokerStars Casino, SkyBet, Sky Casino, Sky Bingo, Sky Vegas and Sky Poker, to name but a few.

The Stars Group’s portfolio also includes some of the most recognizable live poker tournament brands in the world, including the PokerStars Caribbean Adventure, PokerStars Festival, PokerStars Players No Limit Hold’em Championship, European Poker Tour, Asia Pacific Poker Tour, and PokerStars MEGASTACK.

Will PokerStars Be Granted Access to Nevada?

Eldorado Resorts is based in Reno, Nevada, and currently owns five properties in the Silver State. The deal struck between the casino company and TSG would therefore seemingly grant PokerStars immediate access to the Nevada’s sports betting market.

Nevertheless, PokerStars is currently labelled as a “bad-actor” for having flaunted the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act (UIGEA) of 2006. While the brand was just offering online poker at the time, the breech could conceivably be extended to apply to all other forms of gambling. Whether the Nevada Gaming Control Board would move to impose a nonuniform gambling restriction across all verticals on PokerStars, however, remains to be seen.