Derek Stevens, Circa’s CEO, has announced the company’s largest investment outside of Las Vegas, a state-of-the-art retail sportsbook at The Mint Kentucky Downs in Franklin, Kentucky.
Investing in Retail Bookmaking
Derek Stevens is an old-time bookie and is unafraid of taking large wagers that his contemporaries often refuse. His Circa Sports retail sportsbook has gained international fame and publicity for being the epicenter of sports betting in downtown Las Vegas. The famed Circa Sports is located inside the Circa Resort & Casino on Fremont Street.
Stevens often refers to his Vegas sportsbook as the betting mecca of the world, replete with a 78-million-pixel video wall showing sporting events throughout the world, a viewing capacity for 1,000 people, stadium seating for 350 patrons, and serving as the hub for the Vegas Stats and Information Network (VSiN), which broadcasts live from the studio inside the sportsbook.
The Betting Mecca of the World
Stevens had a desire to recreate that experience somewhere other than Las Vegas, and he recently toured The Mint Kentucky Downs in Franklin, Kentucky, and realized he had found his spot. Construction is already underway on the sportsbook, which looks to operate as a scaled-down version of the Vegas facility.
Nevertheless, when it is completed this summer, it will feature 5,100 square feet of pure sportsbook, which will complement the 1,100 slot-like HHR machines already on the premises.
“We’ve had opportunities to make an investment in another large sportsbook in many locations, and we’ve never, we never felt everything aligned properly,” Stevens said.
Good Partners
When the sportsbook does open, it will feature stadium seating for over 100 people with 11 recliners and 13 tables. Only those 21 and over will be able to enter, and it will replace the temporary location at The Mint. A soft launch is planned as the football season nears, while a more formal launch has yet to be announced.
The symbiotic nature of the horse track and sportsbook was evident from the onset. Stevens sat down with The Mint owners and fellow Las Vegas residents, Ron Winchell and Marc Falcone, and Stevens said the following:
“We probably spent about an hour together, and we already figured out, ‘OK, we’re going to make this thing work. I think culturally, our businesses aligned, and I learned a bit more about Kentucky. I knew the regulatory environment was going to be an environment that was appropriate for our business model. So, we went from there, and then really after that, it’s just getting with the right people and the right organization.”
Strategic Location
The south-central Kentucky location will pull traffic from local Kentucky cities, but the main appeal will be its proximity to Nashville, Tennessee, where the new sportsbook is only an hour away. Circa Kentucky is one of the state’s eight sports betting apps, but Stevens has always had a penchant for retail and not mobile sportsbooks.
Although bettors from Nashville are expected to supply much of the dollar volume, operating in the Volunteer State has become untenable due to the handle tax implemented on all mobile sportsbooks, with no retail locations allowed.
“We take large bets, and we run a low-hold model where we target a 2.5% to 3% as our hold percentage,” Stevens explained. “That’s a model that doesn’t work in Tennessee. We think we’re going to provide some unique value to all the citizens south of the border in Nashville.”
