Wynn Resorts hopes to be a major player in the U.S. online sports betting industry by 2022 through WynnBET, and a new approval gets them 1 step closer to that goal. Tennessee has given conditional approval for the operator to allow sports gambling.
The Sports Wagering Committee of the Tennessee Education Lottery Corporation’s Board of Directors approved WynnBET, assuming they fulfill all the statutory and regulatory requirements.
Tennessee is the ninth state to give some sort of approval to WynnBET. The operator is already live in New Jersey, Colorado and Michigan, but also has plans to start in Indiana, Iowa, Massachusetts, Nevada, and Ohio.
Wynn’s overall plan is to become a major sports betting operator by the next Super Bowl. While analysts expect sports-betting to reach as many as 12 new states this year, reaching 35 total, Wynn president and chief financial officer Craig Billings recently noted the company only expects to expand where it makes sense. “Our focus there is making sure that we can achieve market parity in order to do that,” Billings said. “I would say that’s our number one focus. And it consumes 40% of our time on Wynn Interactive.”
Wynn isn’t looking to expand where it doesn’t make sense. A little over a week ago, we learned the operator was rapidly losing interest in a Japanese integrated resort (IR). With key locations locked up by their competitors, and the remaining options looking dubious, the operator has noted they will be content to keep an eye on the territory, but seem to have no plans for a bid at the moment.
Wynn’s Tennessee news comes just a day after Wynn Resorts offered a new public stock sale, and that came shortly after announcing a positive EBITDA (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization) in their recent revenue report. All that good news was enough to see Wynn’s stock price rise from $108.69 on February 5 to it’s current $113.38.
