Caesars Entertainment launched its new West Virginia online casino app earlier this week, officially upping the ante on its iGaming investment in the Mountain State. The website for the new Caesars Palace Casino WV reads, “New online casino. Same iconic palace.”
The app features a full-scale casino separate from its sportsbook product, which has an combined casino with limited offerings. The Caesars Rewards program is integrated into the app, too, meaning members can accrue points and use them interchangeably with the Caesars Sportsbook and all Caesars retail casinos worldwide.
“The new iCasino product offers a significantly improved product and enhanced marketing capabilities, all combined with the compelling benefits of Caesars rewards,” said President of Caesars Sports and Online Gaming, Eric Hession, during the company’s Q2 earnings call on Tuesday.
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Caesars goes all in with new online casino app
Caesars Palace WV online casino comes as Caesars announced its iGaming revenue increased by 27% in Q2. With the new app, prospects continue to grow in ways not possible on the combined sportsbook-casino app. Hession added:
“We haven’t been able to really do segmented marketing to any degree so far with the existing tech that we had. The new system that we have will allow us to create segmentation and it’ll allow us to reinvest, like we do on the [retail] casino side and to use a lot of those experiences.”
Online casinos represent a greater revenue opportunity than sportsbooks. Through the first four months of 2023, they have produced $1.99 billion in overall revenue from just six states according to the American Gaming Association.
While undeniably lucrative, sports betting generated $3.67 billion from 32 states with legal sportsbooks. That number is now 33 with Nebraska’s launch in June, and will become 34 in September when Kentucky sportsbooks go live.
West Virginia is one of the smallest markets with legal online casino gaming, but it is thriving. Its FY 2022/2023 revenue and state taxes grew by 61% year over year, the best in the nation, making it one of the most attractive states for Caesars to target.
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Caesars Casino looks to expand market share
During the earnings call, Caesars CEO, Tom Reeg, said that the company would be active in promoting its new app, but nowhere near what we saw when Caesars Sportsbook launched. He added:
“We are fully aware that we have seen significant competition in the iCasino space. We don’t expect that we’re just going to come in and run everybody over. But we feel like we’ve got the product to start to build market share, and wrapping that into Caesars rewards has been and will continue to be powerful for that business.”
How does Caesars online casino fare in the West Virginia market?
We do not have individual data on Caesars’ online casino revenue in WV as the West Virginia Lottery only reports iGaming totals from each retail casino licensee. For FY 2022/2023, those numbers were:
- The Greenbrier (FanDuel, BetMGM and Golden Nugget): $1.84 billion handle; $67.8 million revenue
- Hollywood Charles Town (DraftKings, PointsBet and Barstool): $1.7 billion handle; $52.9 million revenue
- Mountaineer (Caesars and BetRivers): $486 million handle; $18.3 million revenue
- Mardi Gras (WynnBet): $2.1 million handle; $76,000 revenue – launched on June 22 (only nine days of data)
Caesars is the fourth-largest operator nationwide, behind DraftKings, FanDuel and BetMGM. Based on these totals, the same likely goes in West Virginia, and it’s a distant fourth behind the top three.
That isn’t going to change anytime soon, but even closing that gap by 20% would make for significant profit gains a year from now.
We’ll get a better picture of how the launch went during the Q3 earnings call in November.
New Caesars Palace app requires separate download
The Caesars Palace online casino is a separate app from the integrated sportsbook and casino platform that already existed.
Players will experience a similar interface, but will have access to an expanded library with hundreds of new games.
Casino access remains available on the Caesars Sportsbook & Casino, so you’ll need to play on the new app to take advantage of the new slot titles and table games. That said, all login information remains the same, with reward credits and player balances transferring over.
