Churchill Downs Incorporated said to be exploring potential TwinSpires sale

American casino operator Churchill Downs Incorporated reportedly saw the value of its shares rise by 5.7% yesterday on news that it is potentially exploring the option of selling off its TwinSpires-branded online sportsbetting platform.

According to a Thursday report from the Bloomberg news service and the Kentucky-based company is said to be working with an unnamed advisor in order to solicit prospective interest in the mobile-friendly sports wagering service. Although no final decision has yet been made, the source detailed that Churchill Downs Incorporated could expect to make approximately $1.5 billion by offloading its TwinSpires innovation, which launched in 1996 and offers a variety of iGaming and sportsbetting entertainment to punters in a wide range of American jurisdictions including New Jersey and Pennsylvania.

Increased interests:

Louisville-headquartered Churchill Downs Incorporated is led by Chief Executive Officer Bill Carstanjen (pictured) and reportedly has a market valuation in the region of $8.8 billion. Alongside running its home city’s Churchill Downs horseracing facility, the Nasdaq-listed firm is partially responsible for the 140,000 sq ft Rivers Casino Des Plains venue in the neighboring state of Illinois and was recently granted an Indiana Gaming Commission license for its under-construction Queen of Terre Haute Casino Resort development.

Towering trend:

Bloomberg reported that the American sportsbetting market has ‘exploded’ following the United States Supreme Court’s 2018 revocation of the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act (PASPA), which had largely limited legal sports wagering to casinos in Nevada. Some 30 states have since legalized some form of sportsbetting with Boston-headquartered DraftKings Incorporated purportedly being among the market leaders with a current market valuation thought to be in the region of $12 billion.

Extending entertainment:

In related news and real-money online casino and sportsbetting technologies developer GAN Limited announced earlier this week that it had inked a deal to bring content from Australian innovator Ainsworth Game Technology Limited to the TwinSpires platform. The Californian company used an official Wednesday press release to pronounce that this integration is to take place via its own SuperRGS advance and allow punters in the American state of Michigan to enjoy ‘over 70 unique games with more in the pipeline’.

Inaugural introduction:

Dermot Smurfit serves as the Chief Executive Officer for GAN Limited and he noted that this move follows the May inking of a deal that gave his company the exclusive distribution rights for all current and future online games from Sydney-headquartered Ainsworth Game Technology Limited. The boss additionally asserted that the arrangement involving TwinSpires ‘marks the first deployment’ under this alliance and will allow the platform to feature a ‘leading portfolio’ of the developer’s ‘proven online titles’.

Read a statement from Smurfit…

“This is a key inflection point for Super RGS as we believe most iGaming operators in the United States will become clients of our Super RGS in relatively short order. Super RGS will allow us to increase our take rate on gross operator revenues and open a new broad-based customer base.”