Massachusetts Sports Betting Market Officially Adds Bally Bet App

Another online operator is officially joining the Massachusetts sports betting market.

To kick off July, the Massachusetts Gaming Commission finally approved an operational license for the Bally Bet sports betting app. The company’s services have since launched. That makes Bally Bet the seventh online sports betting app in Massachusetts for residents to utilize.

How will this impact the Bay State’s sports betting market? Why did it take so long for Bally Bet in Massachusetts to receive the stamp of approval? Is this a Massachusetts sports betting app that will be able to contend with other online sportsbooks in the United States currently operating inside the market? 

We won’t promise to have all the answers. But by reading between the lines, we can certainly identify some.

Bally Bet Joining Massachusetts Sports Betting Market Nearly 18 Months After Other Online Operators

Legal sports betting in Massachusetts first launched back in January 2023. At the time, only brick-and-mortar operators went live. Massachusetts online sportsbooks eventually followed suit sometime in March.

However, Bally Bet did not immediately join the fold. The market gave way to online sportsbooks like WynnBet and Betr. Both companies are no longer operating in Massachusetts. Granted, it isn’t totally clear why Bally Bet missed the initial round of inclusions. The Massachusetts Gaming Commission may have simply preferred other candidates. Failing that, Bally Bet’s turbulent business model may have complicated matters. As Legal Sports Report’s Sam McQuillan writes:

“It has been a busy last 12 months for Bally Bet, which relaunched using third-party providers last fall after throwing in the towel on billions of dollars of sports betting investments. Meanwhile, shareholders are waging a battle over ownership and the direction of the company’s online sports betting and gaming business. Management once heralded the naming rights Bally’s has to 18 local sports channels as an opportunity to ‘revolutionize’ online gaming, but it now stands to lose those as well by the end of the year.”

McQuillan is correct to reference Bally’s naming rights issue with local sports channels. Their name is branded under the Bally Sports Network, which serves as home to sports teams that play inside specific regions. 

That model has essentially folded. Diamond Sports Group, a subsidiary of Sinclair Broadcast Group, is responsible for running the Bally Sports Network. They entered Chapter 11 bankruptcy a while ago—March 2023, to be exact. From what we can tell, they have since exited it after getting an investment from Amazon. But the future of Bally Sports Network—and regional sports networks in general—remains wildly uncertain.

Can Bally Bet Gain a Large Enough Market Share in Massachusetts?

All of this background is important context. It helps gauge the viability or potential of Bally Bet Massachusetts. The overarching question: Can they secure a large enough market share in the Bay State to keep building?

It’s impossible to answer that question now. But Bally Bet does face an uphill battle. They are launching 16 months after other Massachusetts sports betting operators. That’s a pretty big head start when it comes to building up a client base. On top of that, they must also grapple with the reality that DraftKings and FanDuel remain joint monopolies when it comes to sports betting in the United States. As McQuillan points out:

“Bally Bet could have a hard time acquiring market share in Massachusetts, which is already in its second year of legal sports betting. DraftKings and FanDuel combine for 80 percent of the online sports wagering handle so far in 2024. In other states like New York, Bally Bet ranks seventh out of nine apps, with less than 1 percent share of the handle.”

This is an awfully steep gap to bridge. And while it helps that Massachusetts officials voted against a sports betting tax increase, this won’t be a complete game-changer.

What’s more, other companies have struggled to get a foothold in markets dominated by FanDuel and Draftkings. Sports betting handle reports for ESPN Bet, operated by Penn Entertainment, remain all over the place since their November 2023 launch. Bally Bet’s brand is more synonymous with sports betting. But that’s maybe the difference between a couple percentage points of the state’s wagering handle. Plus, while Bally’s is widely known in places like Las Vegas, they are not a mainstay of the Massachusetts sports betting market.

Will Bally Bet in Massachusetts be a Good Test Case for Other Online Operators in the USA? 

This might be the most important question of all. The obstacles Bally Bet in Massachusetts face are not unique. The same challenges are posed to, well, basically everyone other than FanDuel, DraftKings and BetMGM.

These issues are mirrored in other markets. Just this year alone, we have seen multiple sportsbooks in the United States shudder domestic operations. Most of them have vacated the market after failing to establish a reasonable enough market share. 

Fortunately for Bally Bet, as we already alluded to, they are a bigger, more successful domestic brand than a company like Tipico Sportsbook, which recently sold off U.S. operations to BetMGM. Still, this leads into a large issue of how competitive any company can be relative to the businesses of FanDuel and DraftKings.

To that end, the Massachusetts sports betting market will be a good gauge for that discussion. This is a recognized brand, and it’s launching in a premier market. Over the long term, the success or failure of ESPN Bet may say more about the USA sports betting business. Even so, the launch of Bally Bet in Massachusetts is one to closely monitor moving forward.

Take a look at this list of the top online sportsbooks so you can find one that works for all of your sports betting needs: