BETSARACEN
BetSaracen goes live with Global Payments’ iGaming Solutions
Saracen Casino Resort has selected Global Payments’ iGaming solutions for Arkansas’ first mobile sports betting app, BetSaracen. Carlton Saffa, CMO Saracen Casino Arkansas and Chris Justice, President Global Payments gaming services spoke to GIO about the partnership.
GIO: Saracen Casino Resort has selected Global Payments’ iGaming solutions to launch Arkansas’ first sports betting app. Can you tell us about that? Carlton Saffa: I love Arkansas, I grew up in Oklahoma and moved there when I was 18 to go to the University of Arkansas. I’m proud of my state and proud of the fact that we’re never afraid to do things our own way. The state took some interesting construction when it came time to put the lumber up to build sports betting. We used a unique form of construction with a rule that essentially said that casinos must remain in the driver’s seat, they can’t simply seed the licence over to a third-party operator. That allowed us the opportunity to open this in our own way. Arkansas legalised sports betting, and within three months the app was live. Ohio took around seven months to launch, and Louisiana and Tennessee took over a year from legalisation to launch. I was in Shreveport over
the weekend, and I noticed at least one major corporate casino still has not launched its sportsbook. Casino gaming is new to Arkansas, it was legalised only a few years ago with Amendment 100. Prior to that we had horse racing, dog racing and electronic games of skill. With the legalisation of the casino games and Amendment 100, sports betting is legal. We’ve been taking retail sports bets for some time, but the recent move by the Arkansas Racing Commission to allow sports betting in a mobile environment and put the casinos in charge was a wise decision. They can’t delegate the skin in the game with a third-party. We had three must-do things on a marker board in the office. The first was to build a quality product and the basis of that was quite simple. We were told that a casino without a nationally branded partner could not build a first-class product. Saracen is only about two and half years old, and we built the brand against our nearest competitor who is over 100 years old. I work with Geocomply and I look at our heat maps and I see the utilisation of our app across the state and it makes me smile. Saracen has gone from being a highly known, valuable name in Central Arkansas to a state-wide entity in just a few months on the power of sports betting. I wanted to prove them wrong that Arkansas can’t do something first-class, and I am very pleased with our numbers and results. A close second was easy and frictionless deposits, we needed to get as close to that as possible in a highly regulated space. The third was easy and frictionless withdrawals. For two of the three must- haves’, working with Chris and his team was crucial and hats off to the team for making it happen. Chris Justice: One of the things that excited us about working with Saracen was the amazing team they’ve built out of nothing. They’ve built a strong physical presence as well as an online presence through partnerships with the Razorbacks, the Trojans, the Red Wolves, and other local sports teams. It was built by Arkansas, built for Arkansas. It is a local book driven by local results, which is a unique thing from a sports betting platform.
Is it legal to bet on college sports? CS: Yes it is. Different states have different regulations, and in Arkansas we have strong responsible gaming regulations, as well as specific parameters around
6 AUGUST 2022 GIO
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