Michigan Man Wins $5.4M Online Gambling, New PENN Projects, & More

This week’s casino news starts off with one player’s big-time win. In the past, playing lottery was only for those who visited a convenience store or gas station to buy a ticket. Nowadays, you can play online and win just as big – just as one Michigan player found out.

Michigan Man Wins $5.4 Million In Online Gambling

While we’re using to hearing life changing wins in Las Vegas, more and more we’re hearing about them online.

One anonymous player just saw their bank account add some zeroes after playing in the online state lottery of Michigan. The player took home a massive $5.42 million jackpot after matching all of the winning Lotto 47 numbers that got drawn at the end of September. The winning ticket was purchased online.

The state of Michigan happens to be one of the few states that offers online lottery gambling in the country – specifically, with lottery. The player was asked about his decision to purchase the lottery ticket, to which they gave the response, “I like playing online and had about $280 in my account from a recent win. I hadn’t played the game in a while, so I decided to buy 15 tickets.”

Turns out, it was their lucky day. This lottery win is the second largest prize that’s ever been won from the state lottery. The current holding record is from a $5.75 million. The recent winner of the lottery just visited the headquarters to pick up his one-time lump sum of $3.8 million instead of 30 annuity payments for the full sum.

PENN Entertainment Announces Multiple New Projects 

While many of the headlines relating to partnerships and marketing recently have focused on BetMGM and DraftKings, PENN Entertainment has announced that they have a number of buns in the oven themselves across several states.

Formerly known as Penn National Gaming, the company unveiled four new projects that they plan to embark on in the coming years. Two of those were to relocate two riverboat casinos. The first one

This photo from Monday, Oct. 8, 2012, in Columbus, Ohio, shows gamblers playing slot machines at the Hollywood Casino Columbus. (AP Photo/Kantele Franko.)

being Aurora and the second one being Joliet. They want to move them to land-based facilities and pull them off the water.

When that’s finished, they plan on building a hotel at Hollywood Columbus in Ohio. Finally, their last project was adding a second hotel over at the M Resort in Nevada.

When you put together the total costs that are anticipated by these four projects, it is going to be setting PENN Entertainment back by $850 million. They also talked about how Gaming and Leisure Properties are expected to cover up to $575 million of the anticipated costs.

Genius Sports Settles Litigation 

Genius Sports has officially been able to settle their issues with Sportradar. Both sports betting data companies were in a legal battle that has been ongoing since the year 2020. Genius Sports just announced that the litigation is officially resolved between the two parties as they managed to come to a settlement. Most of the terms from the agreement are confidential to the parties involved.

Sportradar agreed to pull back on their unofficial in-stadia scouting of multiple leagues such as the National Football League, Premier League and Scottish Professional Football League matches.

The lawsuit from both sides came around when Genius Sports came to an agreement with Football DataCo. The partnership allowed Genius Sports the exclusive rights to license the aforementioned leagues that Sportradar agreed to pull back on. Sportradar claimed that the partnership was unfair business practices on Genius Sports end, but it seems like each side was able to come out with some level of understanding.

Both companies are critical in the sports betting space as they allow the operators to set and move the betting lines – especially during live in-game action. They’re both trying to sign on as many as they can to pick up market share over the coming years.