The business – a joint venture between FTSE 100 operator Entain and US giant MGM Resorts – will become the fifth operator to go live with online sports betting in New York after the market went live on Saturday 8 January.
BetMGM will now compete with DraftKings, FanDuel, Caesars Entertainment and Rush Street Interactive, which all went live in the city with their own offerings last weekend.
More than 17.2m sports betting transactions were registered by geolocation services provider GeoComply in the initial 36 hours after the market went live, with eight million of those coming from the five boroughs of New York City.
The appetite for online sports betting in New York is through the roof, and some operators have looked to attract players with lofty bonus offers.
Caesars Sportsbook offered a $3,000 deposit match on the opening weekend and $300 in free bets, although the product suffered from three hours of downtime on NFL Sunday.BetMGM is the current US market leader for iGaming and the nation’s number three operator in terms of sports betting market share. It was by a distance the biggest name missing when the New York market launched on day one.
New York will become BetMGM’s 19th US market and its largest to date. The brand is already the official sports betting partner of the Knicks and Rangers, as well as the Madison Square Garden Arena.
“With today’s monumental news, we’ll now be able to fully activate our relationships with MGM Resorts’ Empire City Casino and Madison Square Garden,” said BetMGM CEO Adam Greenblatt.
“We look forward to offering customers in New York unique experiences that they can’t access on any other platform.
“A huge thank you to the New York Gaming Commission as well as to our entire BetMGM team who have worked tirelessly to bring this to fruition,” he added.
New York regulators have so far awarded nine sports betting licences to operators, although four are still to launch in the state; PointsBet, WynnBet, Bally Bet and Resorts World.
