Sports betting in the state of Oregon has been legal since late 2019. All bets have been going through the Scoreboard mobile sports betting app. Since the Oregon Lottery continues to control all forms of legal sports betting in the state, this is the only app available to the betting public.
There is also one legal retail sportsbook in the state. It opened to the public in September of 2019 at the Chinook Winds tribal gaming facility.
Given the limited choices for Oregon sports bettors, it is easy to see why the state has failed to meet its revenue expectations. In light of this underperformance, while so many other states, such as New Jersey books, Rhode Island books, and Nevada books with legal betting are exceeding expectations, a change is in the wind.
The Oregon Lottery has recently announced its intentions to run its online sports betting through the DraftKings’ mobile sportsbook app.
The primary reason for the change is the lagging market. However, this change has been in the works since early last year. Oregon initially turned to SBTech to launch the state’s online sports betting platform.
SBTech merged with DraftKings in early 2020 only to be bought out by Diamond Eagle Acquisition Corp. The newly formed company under the DraftKings’ brand then went public in April of last year.
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Barry Pack is the current Oregon Lottery Director. In a prepared statement on Feb. 26, he made the following comments:
“In Scoreboard news, with all of the events over the last year, you may have missed that our Scoreboard platform partner SBTech was purchased by DraftKings. DraftKings is well established in the US and this presents the lottery with opportunities, including benefitting from the economies of scale offered by the company.”
He then went on to add:
“We are in initial discussions with them about a new contract to transition Scoreboard off the SBTech platform and onto the DraftKings platform, as well as any other potential products and services. It is likely I will be coming to you in the March meeting for approval of a major procurement for this purpose.”
If everything goes according to plan, this would be the second exclusive market for the highly popular mobile sports betting app. DraftKings also has an arrangement with New Hampshire as the sole sportsbook in that state.
The winds of change also go back to past issues between SBTech and the Oregon Lottery. As of February of 2020, the state announced that it was on pace to lose $5.3 million in its first fiscal year of operation. The Scoreboard site was up and running for four months at this time. Also consider Luckii, an Oregon horse racing exclusive.
The switch over to DraftKings should increase interest throughout the entire state on name recognition alone. Gaming figures released for New Hampshire bear this out.
With a total population of 1.3 million, this East Coast state has been able to generate a bigger handle with DraftKings than Oregon did with Scoreboard in 2020. The current population of this West Coast state tops 4.2 million.
