Rich Roberts’ career has been at the intersection of video gaming and real-money virtual gambling for the last quarter-century, working for well-known brands including Sportech, Hasbro Interactive and Atari. Now, he’s helping lead the launch of Connecticut’s virtual gambling industry.
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Rich Roberts’ career has been at the intersection of video gaming and real-money virtual gambling for the last quarter-century, working for well-known brands including Sportech, Hasbro Interactive and Atari.
Today he’s helping lead the launch of Connecticut’s virtual gambling industry, after state lawmakers earlier this year legalized sports betting and iGaming and reaffirmed its commitment to fantasy sports.
Roberts was recently named president of Mohegan Digital, the newly-formed iGaming division of Mohegan Gaming & Entertainment, parent company of Connecticut’s Mohegan Sun casino.
Roberts, who most recently served as executive business consultant for RSD Consulting, a firm focused on helping organizations enter the U.S. sports digital media, regulated digital gaming, and eSports markets, will oversee the launch of Mohegan Sun’s Connecticut sports betting and iGaming operations, which are expected to debut this fall.
There’s a lot on the line for both Mohegan Sun and its in-state competitor Foxwoods Resort Casino, which have been ceding revenues in recent years as more brick-and-mortar competition pops up along the East Coast.
They, along with the state of Connecticut, both see online gaming as a significant revenue generator.
The state’s newly-signed sports betting and internet gaming law could eventually produce $450 million in gross revenue for gaming operators, translating to upward of $105 million in state tax revenue, according to estimates from industry news and research provider PlayCT.com.
The research site says iGaming will likely be a much bigger draw — producing $350 million in gross revenue for operators compared to about $100 million from sports betting.
(There is an 18% tax on online casino gambling for the first five years, and then a 20% tax for the next five years on gross gambling revenues. There will be a 13.75% tax rate on sports betting.)
Mohegan recently announced a partnership with fantasy sports and gambling company FanDuel, whose technology will serve as the backbone of the casino’s digital offerings that will include a website and app where patrons can place bets on professional football, basketball, baseball and hockey, among other sports, and play both traditional and new casino games.
Roberts recently participated in a virtual Q&A with Hartford Business Journal to discuss his new role as Mohegan prepares to launch virtual gambling in the weeks ahead.
Q: What are your goals for the new position?
With the passage of legislation in Connecticut, Mohegan had created this Mohegan Digital business to launch its digital gaming operations in the state as well as other states and territories where Mohegan has an interest from a casino and casino operating position.
When you look at the overall goal of our digital iGaming and sports betting offerings, it’s really an extension of our retail operations. It’s Mohegan Sun in your pocket, on your mobile device. It’s an extension of the brand that allows the retail casino customer to enjoy many of the same games within the casino but also reward them and give them experiential rewards to get them back into the casino.
Q: What makes up Mohegan Digital?
The focus is on the digital positions, whether it is the website where you can play casino games or the app. But really it’s about giving the customer casino-like experiences on their mobile devices and PCs.
Q: Casinos don’t want iGaming to take away from their brick-and-mortar patrons. How will the digital side of the business encourage people to come to the casino?
Through the eight-plus years that iGaming was started in New Jersey there really hasn’t been any cannibalization that’s taken away retail customers and brought them online. In fact, it has brought more players to the casino by engaging them on the digital product first.
Mohegan is a premier property both in Connecticut and New England. If you take a look at the restaurants and the arena we offer, those are the types of experiential rewards that we can offer up to our digital players to get them back to the casino so they can enjoy a concert or night out.
The digital experience will appeal to a lot of people in Connecticut and outside Connecticut who may not have been to the casino and we think that experience will help get them to the casino and enjoy all those experiences that we have to offer.
Q: Who is your targeted customer base for fantasy sports, iGaming and sports betting?
You will see some overlap between sports betting and daily fantasy, which is a more male audience, where iGaming is more a female audience.
What you see at the casino won’t change much online. Certainly sports betting as we have seen it historically has been more male dominated early on, but expectations are that will probably change as it becomes more known and popular.
Q: Mohegan Digital has said it will provide “cutting-edge” online gaming technology. What does that mean?
From an iGaming perspective our partner here in Connecticut is FanDuel. They are the premier online sports betting platform in the U.S.
Our partnership with them on sports betting and daily fantasy is really bringing the best-of-breed technology into the state to provide our customers that great experience.
On the iGaming side we are partnering with them to bring the best digital content that will have a lot of crossover with the favorite games that our customers have within the casino but also creating new games with partners like International Game Technology and Scientific Games.
Q: Why partner with a third party to launch digital gambling rather than create something internally?
It’s a go-to-market strategy to immediately bring the best to our customers. We want to bring in the right technology that we know was already successful.
And with the time it takes to build new technology, particularly with the speed at which the state wants to go live, it was more important to bring the product to market immediately.
Q: When are iGaming and sports betting going to launch?
We are hoping and expecting this fall. There are certain things the state is still putting into place and they are doing a great job to make sure that is all in order but we are definitely hoping in early fall that we will be able to go live. But we are waiting for the state to make that decision.
Q: How big of an opportunity are iGaming and sports betting for Mohegan?
We have our own internal numbers.
When we look at New Jersey I think they’ve done about a billion dollars in handle in the big months in sports betting. We would expect we would be in line with states like New Jersey based upon our population in terms of those top-line revenues.
In terms of what numbers we are projecting, a lot of that has to do with the state and what the requirements are, so it’s really a challenge to put those numbers together.
Q: What will the physical sportsbook be like and what kind of interactions will there be between the app and sportsbook?
The physical sportsbook, we expect it to be one of the largest and best on the East Coast. The technology that is used in the sportsbook will be the same that is used on the app with FanDuel. We expect it to be the go-to destination for New England.
We will have a temporary sportsbook within the Bow & Arrow Sports Bar that is on the floor and then we will be building out the primary sportsbook that we expect to be ready in the early part of 2022. We will be retrofitting the Race Book.
Q: How will Mohegan differentiate itself from Foxwoods and the CT Lottery?
The lottery will only have sports betting, they won’t have the iGaming piece. That will just be with us and Foxwoods.
We will be using the experiences and property to really build upon the digital success. You will see a lot happening where the app and website will be complementary with the retail experiences. I think that’s where we will build our success.
Q: What’s the marketing strategy to get your customers to your digital offerings?
It will have a wide range of social media, digital media, out of home TV. One of the exciting things for us this year is our 25th anniversary. You’ll be seeing a lot around our 25th anniversary and our digital offerings.
Q: Who can actually gamble? Is it just Connecticut residents?
You don’t have to be a Connecticut resident, you just have to be physically in the state to be able to use the app.
Q: How does the technology work to ensure that only people who are physically in the state are using it?
We will be using geofencing technology. There are several companies that have been doing this since the emergence of New Jersey and being able to geofence people in the state.
All the states that have sports betting and/or online gaming utilize this technology, which has been proven for many years.
