Online casino gambling launched on March 5, but it'll be a few months before state officials will be able to assess if allowing gamblers to play slots and table games by phone, tablet and computer will pay off.
Bally's Corp., which has exclusive rights in partnership with International Game Technology PLC to manage iGaming, had projected that allowing online gaming would bring in as much as $210 million into the state coffers over five years, but that estimate has been revised downward by the state to $167.5 million, based on projections by an advisory firm hired by the state.
Paul Grimaldi, spokesperson for the R.I. Lottery, which is overseeing iGaming for the state, says the agency is sticking with its revenue projection for now and will revisit it in May when financial analysts convene to discuss future revenue figures. "Any change to [iGaming estimates] would come as a result of the state's May Revenue Estimating Conference," he said.
To be sure, the state won't exactly be rolling in cash from iGaming in the first few years.
At a revenue estimating conference in November, state officials concluded that iGaming would bring in $4.9 million between March 1 and June 30, then another $25.1 million in fiscal 2025.
It's too early to determine how iGaming is doing since it started at noon on March 5. Grimaldi said 315 people had registered for the online slots and table gambling app as of March 4, before it went live. He did not have updated numbers after that.
As of now, iGaming allows gamblers within state borders to play about 170 slot games and table games without making a trip to one of Bally’s Corp.’s two brick-and-mortar casinos in the state.
Bally’s constructed a 4,000-square-foot studio on the second floor of its Lincoln casino where live dealers run blackjack and roulette table games. Twenty-five dealers will be simulcast eight hours a day. Additional games will be added over time.
The iGaming program will create between 50 and 75 new jobs, according to Bally's spokesperson Patti Doyle.
The design of iGaming was changed last year to include live dealers after R.I. Lottery Director Mark Furcolo raised concerns that having computer software run the games would be an unconstitutional expansion of gambling.
Furcolo also expressed concern that gamblers’ appetite for iGaming would eat into the revenue from brick-and-mortar casinos and traditional lottery products. In response, iGaming legislation was changed so the state would get a bigger take from online slot revenues than originally proposed.
As it stands now, nearly 62% of the slot revenue and 15% of the table game revenue will go to the state.
Grimaldi told PBN the division no longer has constitutional concerns, but during a legislative committee hearing on the state lottery in January, Furcolo testified that implementing iGaming has been "quite a heavy lift for the current staff."
Still, state leaders applauded the start of iGaming in Rhode Island, which became the seventh state to allow online casino gambling.
Bally’s President CEO Craig Eaton said iGaming will “better position the state’s casinos in the competitive New England gaming market.” That market includes Connecticut and Massachusetts, two states whose sportsbooks are already eating into Rhode Islands business, state officials acknowledge.
Other states that jumped into online gambling before Rhode Island are already dealing with the consequences of easy access.
A February report by Morgan State University’s Center for Data Analytics and Sports Gaming Research said that iGaming “is one of the most addictive activities available,” citing research by the American Psychological Association that found that 75% of subjects with iGaming experience reported rates of problem or “pathological” gambling.
Another report by the Rutgers Center for Gambling Studies on iGaming in New Jersey showed that 31% of online gamblers surveyed had gambled during work hours; Connecticut has seen calls to its problem-gambling hotline more than triple over the last six months.
In acknowledgment of the social cost, Rhode Island's iGaming legislation required Bally’s to provide a minimum of $50,000 in funding for problem gambling prevention and at least $200,000 to fund gambling treatment programs. The platform also includes “responsible gaming” tools to control time and financial activity on the site, said Doyle, allowing wager limits, self-exclusions, and self-enforced “cooling off” periods.
