A battle is brewing in “The Land of Opportunity.”
The Saracen Casino Resort in Pine Bluff is petitioning the Arkansas Racing Commission for a rule change to permit online casino gambling in the state.
Currently, the state of Arkansas only allows online sports betting. Saracen wants to expand this by enabling bettors to use their phones to play casino games such as slots, blackjack, and craps—games that are presently restricted to the state’s few brick-and-mortar casinos.
Saracen Has a Plan to Help Get Online Gambling Legalized
Saracen Casino is located 40 minutes from Little Rock and offers an 80,000-square-foot gaming area complete with over 1,800 slot machines, 40 table games, and a dedicated poker room. Its operators aim to expand their games beyond the four walls of the casino to the four borders of Arkansas.
To help convince the Racing Commission that legalizing online gambling is the right move, Saracen is developing its own app called ‘Play Saracen‘.
To make the offer more attractive, Saracen plans to introduce an online 50/50 raffle, with half of the proceeds going towards NIL (Name, Image, Likeness) funding to help recruit athletes to Arkansas universities.
Carlton Saffa, Saracen’s chief marketing officer, told ABC 7 News that this is significant because the move could potentially raise hundreds of thousands of dollars each week to support NIL needs at every college in Arkansas.
Not Everyone is On Board With the Plan
The idea is getting support from some lawmakers and university athletic boosters, but the governor’s administration and Oaklawn Racing Casino Resort in Hot Springs are not on board.
In a statement to Gambling.com, Jim Hudson, the secretary of the state Department of Finance and Administration, emphasized that Saracen’s gaming expansion plans in Arkansas should be carefully considered to understand their impact on the state.
Officials at Oaklawn Racing Casino Resort in Hot Springs are concerned that an online drawing to support NIL efforts might decrease the revenue generated by the state’s scholarship lottery. They also mentioned that iGaming could reduce the number of visitors to physical casinos.
Jane Smith, CEO of Oaklawn Racing Casino Resort, told Coco Adocs, “We believe that online gambling is a threat to the integrity of the industry and could potentially harm our business. We are committed to upholding the laws of the state and will fight back against any attempts to legalize online gambling in Arkansas,” she said.
Meanwhile, Southland Casino Hotel, the state’s third resort, operates in West Memphis. Its operators have not commented on the idea.
This Battle is Just Getting Started in Arkansas
The fight between Saracen Casino and Oaklawn Racing Casino Resort is heating up. Both sides are working hard to win over the public and state lawmakers.
“I believe Oaklawn’s opposition is based in the fact that the Saracen sportsbook books about three times as many wagers online as Oaklawn does,” Saffa told KATV. “We’re the new kid on the block, we’re the new casino in Arkansas, but we are not afraid to innovate and to hustle and we know that the internet is where this is going.”
We’ll keep following the developments to see who ultimately wins out.
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