SportsHandle and friends deliver another round-up of the week’s big developments in US sports betting.

FanDuel Sportsbook To Go Live With Sports Betting In Illinois With Par-A-Dice Casino

If everything goes as planned, FanDuel will join the ranks of live Illinois sportsbooks by the start of football season, but it will do so with its “Plan B.”

According to sources, FanDuel will launch its digital sports betting app through its partnership with Boyd Gaming, owners of the Par-A-Dice Casino in East Peoria. As of Wednesday morning, Par-A-Dice had not filed its request to commence sports betting with the Illinois Gaming Board. The IGB has been taking two-to-three weeks to approve go-live requests.

FanDuel was awarded its Temporary Operating Permit on July 17.

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Hollywood Casino Opens Sportsbooks At Aurora And Joliet In Illinois

AURORA and JOLIET, Ill. — Lights … camera … sports wagering!

Two more sportsbooks in the state of Illinois accepted their first legal wagers Thursday as Hollywood Casinos in both Aurora and Joliet launched their newest additions.

The two books, operated by Penn National Gaming, increase the number of places sports betting is available in the state of Illinois to six. They are the third and fourth books, respectively, to open in Illinois this month after William Hill launched its sportsbook at Grand Victoria Casino in Elgin on Aug. 1, and DraftKings at Casino Queen in East St. Louis followed suit four days later.

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Tennessee Sports Betting To Begin No Later Than Nov. 1

The Tennessee Education Lottery said Tuesday that its online/mobile sports wagering market will launch this fall.

TEL CEO Rebecca Hargrove said during a meeting of the Sports Wagering Advisory Council that sports gaming operators licensed in Tennessee should be able to go live by Nov. 1, 2020. Regulators were expecting to launch in September, but that timeline didn’t hold.

It wasn’t the first unofficial delay for the Volunteer State’s sports betting launch, but this appears to be the last of the delays. That’s welcomed news for the state’s sports betting community.

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Unibet Looking To Establish Presence In Competitive Indiana Sports Betting Market

As the most recent sports betting entrant into Indiana, Unibet is hoping it timed its arrival at just the right moment.

Owned by the Kindred Group, which has its headquarters based in Malta, Unibet was the eighth mobile sports betting platform to be approved in the state of Indiana, entering the fray in late July. Unibet, which originated in Sweden in 1997, is operating through the Horseshoe Hammond — which can lay claim to being the top retail sportsbook performer in the Hoosier State.

Yet there are challenges for Unibet, the biggest being the eventual sale of Horseshoe Hammond. It is one of three Eldorado Properties in the state earmarked to be sold by the end of the year as one of the conditions set by the Indiana Gaming Commission for its approval of the $17 billion nationwide merger with Caesars.

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Johnny Nolon’s Owner David Minter Gradually Embraces Sports Betting

When asked whether his beloved club West Ham United F.C. will ever win the English Premier League or if his wish for world peace will one day be granted, Johnny Nolon’s Casino and Colorado Grande Hotel & Casino owner David Minter cleverly responded that the latter proposition is more likely.

For years, Minter placed comparable odds on the probability that Colorado would eventually legalize sports betting. To illustrate his skepticism, Minter pointed to longstanding restrictive policies that until recently prohibited NFL teams from associating with gambling companies. The NFL relaxed the ban earlier this year, while the NCAA scrapped a decades-old policy that prohibited states with legalized sports gambling from hosting championship events. And last November, Colorado voters legalized sports betting via referendum. Six months later, on May 1, the first four operators went live in the state.

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Pennsylvania Online Poker Market Overtaken By New Jersey’s In First Two Months Of Summer

The COVID-19 pandemic has been good news for fledgling online poker sites in the U.S. and has so far set up a competition of sorts between the markets in New Jersey and Pennsylvania.

On Monday, the Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board released revenue data on the state’s casino gambling industry from July. PokerStars, which partnered with the Mount Airy retail casino in order to offer games within Keystone State borders, reported a hair below $3 million in rake, down 8% compared to June’s $3.2 million. There’s no year-over-year comparison yet because the market is less a year old.

It’s still good times for Pennsylvania’s lone online poker site. PokerStars PA launched in November, and it averaged about $2.1 million in rake per month from November to February.

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