Bally Bet Temporarily Shuts Down To Integrate New Technologies
Mike Goodpaster Published 21/07/2023
The sports betting brand, Bally Bet, has temporarily shut down its operations in most states, and is expected to be out of action for a ‘few months’ while it gets new technology in place.
This has meant that customers in several states have had their Bally Bet accounts closed and seen checks mailed to them of their account balances. It is hoped that the sportsbook will reopen on a state-by-state basis in the coming months with the new Kambi sports betting technology in place.
The shutdown took place at the end of last month in all of Bally Bet’s operating states except for Arizona. This meant that customers had to either manually withdraw their funds or get the monies mailed to the address given in their accounts.
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When will Bally Bet be back?
The Bally Bet website has a message that the brand is working to elevate the betting experience it offers and that this work would take place over the next few months. It’s hoped that Bally Bet could make its first reappearance in Ohio this August where it aims to promote its recent partnership with the Cleveland Browns.
There are also a few Bally Bet retail sportsbooks that are expected to relaunch over the summer months, although the full switch to Kambi technologies across all seven states and four retail locations probably won’t be complete until the end of the year.
How costly will this be for Bally Bet?
It’s an embarrassing time for the Bally Bet executives and a frustrating one for its existing customers. This is because customers in all states except for Arizona will have to create new accounts with the brand. The fact that the relaunch won’t happen in most states until after the start of the new NFL season will certainly affect the brand’s sign up numbers.
However, it’s clear that something had to be done at the struggling sportsbook. In May 2023, Bally Bet had been getting just a 0.01% share of the total number of sports bets taken in Indiana, and things were little better in New York where the sportsbook took just a 0.16% share of the total sports betting handle.
This comes after the parent organization, Bally’s, spent a staggering $3 billion in building the Bally Bet platform that struggled to take control over the fledgling US betting market. With the winding down of the brand’s DFS operator, MonkeyKnifeFight, and the writing off of nearly $400 million in costs, it eventually led to the CEO, Lee Fenton, stepping down from his role in February.
It is hoped that by shifting to a better platform, more customers will be encouraged to sign up to Bally Bet. This will see the full integration of the Bally Rewards loyalty program into the sportsbook and it’s supposed to have better marketing functions too. There will also be the introduction of White Hat Gaming technology to manage customers’ accounts. But whether this is enough to remedy the recent damage done remains to be seen.