Casino News Round-up: Athletes & Gambling Partner Up & More

This week’s casino news starts off with a landmark deal between a sportsbook and an active NFL player. We now know who the answer to the Jeopardy question will be.

MGM Signs NFL Player To Become Gambling Ambassador

It was only a matter of time before athletes started to become intertwined with sportsbooks.

Las Vegas Raiders wide receiver Davante Adams has announced that he’ll be partnering up with MGM Resorts International to become their next brand ambassador. Adams is set to be the very first active NFL athlete to fill this position for a sports betting brand. That means you’ll see him in marketing campaigns and other content initiatives while representing BetMGM.

For those that aren’t familiar with Adams, he was signed by the Las Vegas this offseason following a stellar year with the Green Bay Packers. He broke the Packers record for receiving yards in a single year with over 1,500 in 2021. It seems like he’s already fitting right in with Las Vegas after news of this deal broke.

Green Bay Packers wide receiver Davante Adams, of the Green Bay Packers, runs in the first half of an NFL game against the Detroit Lions, in Detroit, Jan. 9, 2022. (AP Photo/Duane Burleson, File)

MGM Resorts has been expanding in every way that it can lately. They recently just debuted a sportsbook at State Farm Stadium, home of the Arizona Cardinals, becoming the first official sportsbook at an NFL stadium in history. With the addition of Adams, things are looking good for MGM as they aim to expand their footprint both online and in-person in the sports betting space.

Aristocrat Gaming Inks Deal With New England Patriots

Aristocrat Gaming also had an NFL deal to announce this week. The gaming brand inked an agreement with the NFL’s New England Patriots as the two sides announced that they are going to start a multi-year partnership to allow Aristocrat to be the official partner of their franchise and stadium. Aristocrat will have signage all over the stadium and is going to have a ton of gambling-related promotions available to their fans.

Aristocrat has been wanting to dive deeper and deeper into the NFL scene to tap into their huge audience. Before this announcement was made, they reported that they got an exclusive licensing agreement to create and run NFL-themed slot machines.

Keep in mind that this is a casino brand. The state of Massachusetts is expected to be bringing in a lot more gambling traffic soon. Online sports betting in Massachusetts are coming around sometime in 2023. That market could further boost Aristocrat’s expansion into the NFL world.

NFL Thursday Night Football Odds Finds Sponsor

Amazon has been searching for a sponsor for Thursday Night Football on Prime Video lately and it seems like they’ve finally landed on one. To no one’s surprise, a gaming brand was interested to scoop up the ad space.

DraftKings has announced that it had been selected as the sponsor for the weekly primetime football game. The only detail we currently know about the agreement is that it is set to last for multiple years as no financial terms were disclosed to the public.

DraftKings will have integrations in the pregame on TNF, which is set to include things like sports betting insights and current odds for the game. Their odds will show up in the broadcast and the play-by-play announcers will reference them when it fits. Parlays will also be promoted as part of this deal as those are some of the most successful bets for the sportsbooks.

This agreement could see major action head towards DraftKings throughout the 2022 NFL season. It had been estimated that 46.6 million Americans will be placing at least one bet throughout the entirety of the NFL year. This is actually a three percent increase compared to the estimation that the American Gaming Association found back in 2021. With DraftKings getting such exposure, they’re hoping that customers will choose them as their brand for betting.