After many hiccups along the road, the Oregon Lottery finally launched its mobile betting app last Wednesday. And it proved really popular with state bettors. In fact, it was so popular that the massive flood of Oregonians on the new betting product’s official website bogged it down.
The Oregon Lottery said over the weekend that thousands of people have registered to bet on the Scoreboard betting app and that they have placed more than half a million on different sports since its launch last week.
The app was expected to be rolled out late in August or early in September, ahead of the NFL Kickoff Game on September 5. However, that plan collapsed when the product failed to pass a first round of testing.
The Scoreboard app was supposed to be the state’s first betting operation. However, the Siletz Tribe beat the state-owned product by opening Oregon’s first retail sportsbook at its Chinook Winds Casino Resort in Lincoln City in late August.
Action-Hungry Bettors Bog App Site Down
According to information from the Oregon Lottery, a total of 16,500 people have registered with the new betting app so far and they have wagered more than $500,000. Bettors are able to place bets on football, basketball, baseball, soccer, tennis, golf, boxing, MMA, and volleyball, among a number of other sports.
The Scoreboard betting app is powered by European sports wagering and online gambling technology provider SBTech.
The long-anticipated release of the Oregon Lottery’s betting product was marred by some hiccups on launch day. Many users complained that the sign-on process was not as seamless as expected and that emails were not working properly.
The Oregon Lottery acknowledged that there were some user frustrations and that those were caused by the high number of people jumping on the app’s official website to register and download the product.
Oregon did not have to implement any significant changes to its gambling law in order to be able to go live with mobile betting as the state was already partially exempted from the federal PASPA sports betting ban that was annulled by the US Supreme Court in a historic ruling issued in May 2018.
No College Betting
While the Scoreboard app enables Oregonians to place bets on a wide array of sports, it does not accept action on college sports. The Oregon Lottery said previously that it would limit the available betting options to professional sports as those were “an easier sell to the broader audience.”
Lottery officials also revealed that they could extend wagering action to college sports sometime next year. Oregon is home to two Power Five teams – the Oregon Ducks and the Oregon State Beavers, while it has just one major professional sports league representative – NBA franchise Portland Trail Blazers. In other words, the state is certainly set to lose a lot of gambling money due to the lack of college sports betting options.
It is also important to note that unlike its state-owned competitor, the Siletz Tribe’s retail sports betting facility does accept wagers on collegiate sports, which means that it has one important competition advantage over the Scoreboard app.
On the other hand, the state’s tribes are not allowed to run digital sports betting operations under their current gambling compact with Oregon. And mobile wagering has already cemented itself as the biggest vertical in many states where it is legal, which means that Oregon’s app can still become that state’s leading betting product.
Source: Users of Oregon Lottery’s new sports betting app wager $500,000 by first NFL Sunday, KATU.com
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