Boyd Gaming Shows Interest in PA iGaming

Boyd Gaming shows interest in online gaming during recent meeting with Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board.

This week, executives of Boyd Gaming met with the Pennsylvania Gaming Control board to discuss their purchase of the Valley Forge Casino. The company acquired the property for $280 million and was seeking the board’s approval to complete the sale. During the meeting, Boyd Gaming discussed online gaming many times and appear to be ready to get in on the action, once they are done acquiring the casino property.

iGaming Played a Role in the Acquisition

Keith Smith, the CEO and President of Boyd Gaming, was in attendance during the meeting and stated the part of the reason why the company sought to purchase Valley Forge was due to the potential for online gaming. In speaking with the board, Smith stated that online gaming is important to the company.

Smith discussed the company’s online gaming experience in the state of New Jersey and how they operated the online casino for the Borgata for three years before selling their 50% stake of the company. Boyd is now looking forward to getting started in the new industry about to launch in Pennsylvania.

It was certainly smart of Boyd Gaming to consider the purchase of Valley Forge for the reason of online gaming. Pennsylvania is in the early stages of licensing, so the company has plenty of time to get their affairs in order and vie for licensing. If they are approved, then they will be able to launch along side everyone else. They will have an upper hand though, having already operated an online casino in the past.

Other Opportunities

The purchase of Valley Forge also gives Boyd Gaming additional opportunities in Pennsylvania. On top of land-based gaming and online gaming, the company may be able to become involved in sports betting as well as bid for licensing of a Category 4 casino, or satellite venue as it is better known. The new property will also allow Boyd to move their footprint into the northeast region of the nation to help push their gaming brand even further across the US.

Recent changes to state law have allowed additional gaming opportunities with specific changes being beneficial to Valley Forge. Provisions were made to the new law that would increase revenue potential to the Category 3 casinos of the state, which includes Valley Forge. An amenity fee requirement for such casinos has now been lifted which should help to boost visitors to the venue.

Valley Forge was able to make a $1 million payment to the state and they are no longer required to collect a fee from a casino guest. The fee was something that guests were not a fan of and certainly harmed the casinos ability to bring in high numbers of visitors.

Now the casino can also increase the total number of slot games as well as table games they offer. This will allow the casino to compete more with other casinos in the state. This rule change also requires payment. $2.5 million paid allows the casino to offer as many as 250 slot machines while a $1 million payment means that as many as 15 table games can be added to the venue.

After making these changes, Valley Forge has certainly seen an uptick in visitors as well as earnings. Over the recent months, the casino has seen their revenues grow by double digits.

Now, it will be interesting to watch and see if the new owners of Valley Forge will become involved in online gaming as well as if they will look to any other gambling opportunities such as sports betting or satellite casinos in the near future.