William Hill in Colorado is about to get a rebrand.
Bettors in Colorado have known about the Caesars acquisition of William Hill since last September. That came on the heels of the William Hill sportsbook app launching in Colorado earlier in the month.
The $3.7 billion sale closed on April 22 after a three-week delay due to a legal challenge, according to iGaming Business.
William Hill rebrand to Caesars
What that means for sports betting in Colorado, and the U.S., is that William Hill will rebrand the online and retail sports betting enterprise to Caesars.
Not much else will change because of this acquisition for bettors in the Centennial State. The goal is to become a major player in the sports betting space, and that includes Colorado.
Mobile and retail bettors will continue to get a user-friendly platform that provides futures and odds that are specific to Colorado, just under the Caesars brand. The sole purpose for the company was to get William Hill’s U.S. betting enterprise and technology.
As a Caesars spokesperson said:
“While our mobile app and most sports books will be rebranded to reflect that they are now a part of Caesars Entertainment, the William Hill brand will continue to be featured in both mobile and retail sportsbooks depending on the state.”
The lone question was what this deal meant for William Hill in the U.K and Europe. That’s where the company was founded in 1934. As the William Hill site notes, “with headquarters in London and Leeds it has a national presence of licensed betting offices in Great Britain and Northern Ireland and is one of the country’s leading online betting and gaming services.”
William Hill non-UK business sale
On a Caesars earnings call on Tuesday, more light was shone on what is to come with William Hill across the pond.
It was on that earnings call that Caesars CEO Tom Reeg said the company will launch the remainder of the sale before the end of Quarter Two on June 30. The hope is to announce a buyer by the end of Quarter Three or the start of Quarter Four, with the close of the deal by early May next year.
Reeg made it clear on the earnings call that Caesars didn’t consider holding onto the entire William Hill business.
“One of my pet peeves when I was an investor was companies that didn’t know what they were good at,” he said in a quote from iGaming Business story. “And I can’t tell you we’re good at running a non-U.S. digital business. I can tell you that there are almost certainly people out there that will do it better than us and see opportunity there.”
Reeg added that Caesars will be “aggressive” in finding the potential buyer for the non-U.S. William Hill business, but he didn’t get into what a sales price would look like.
Can Caesars become a major player in Colorado?
As noted earlier, this rebrand will also impact the retail books that William Hill currently has at the Isle Casino Hotel and Lady Luck Casino in Black Hawk.
That also means that William Hill would be afforded new and complete access to Caesars’ brand and highly regarded loyalty program (that had approximately 60 million members at the end of 2019), which it currently does not have.
Since Colorado doesn’t include numbers for the operators in its monthly sports betting revenue reports, we don’t know who the top sportsbooks are. However, it’s fair to assume the top two are DraftKings and FanDuel, followed by the rest.
Given the name recognition that Caesars possesses and the money the company will throw at sports betting in Colorado and across the country, when you parlay that with the William Hill brand and the fact it’s been live since last September, don’t bet against Caesars Sports becoming a major player in Colorado.
