Rhode Island Sportsbooks Reloaded by IGT and WH

William Hill and IGT have introduced an update to their Rhode Island sportsbook as part of an ongoing partnership between the companies. The industry leaders will help RI streamline the sports betting experience and offer customers a better, streamlined mobile betting experience.

Enrico Drago of IGT on the Elevated Player Experience

Enrico Drago, Senior VP of IGT, has commented on a new string of improvements for William Hill and IGT’s Rhode Island sportsbooks. Drago said that a string of planned technology updates has been rolled to boost the companies’ sports betting operations in the state. Among the things he mentioned, Drago spoke about “elevated customer experience”.

These updates also position the Rhode Island Lottery for success when professional sports return in full force“.

The IGT’s PlaySports technology will power up the mobile app, giving Rhode Island a foothold to benefit from the improved user interface, larger betting portfolio, and overall enhanced experience.

Another important highlight is the addition of debit cards as a viable payment method. That is a significant improvement on the existing payment method which only allowed eChecks. Further to the update, the sportsbooks will benefit from a larger betting portfolio, including a handful of more exotic markets.

The IGT and WH Partnership

International Game Technology (IGT) and William Hill partnered up back in November 2018. The pair agreed to a multi-year deal to boost their sports betting footprint in the country.

In March 2019, RI Governor Gina Raimondo signed legislation, effectively legalizing mobile sports betting. Once the order was in effect, Rhode Island took until September 2019 to launch mobile sports betting.

Because of the COVID-19 pandemic, many industries suffered, and gambling and betting were among them. Due to the statewide shutdown of non-essential businesses and the many canceled sporting events, the industry is taking heavy losses.

Reports from January 2020, show a revenue of $3.3 million for land-based and online betting, while in just one moth – February, the revenue spiraled down to $2.3 million.

Ken Fuchs of William Hill Comments

Ken Fuchs, President of Digital at William Hill, also had something to add. “We are excited to continue to innovate with the Rhode Island Lottery and IGT,” he said.

He mentioned that the company was adding additional prop bets. This way Rhode Island will become more competitive once professional sports come back to the US.

The planned overhaul will also include new betting markets. In order to reduce the effect of the canceled sporting events, William Hill is including new peculiar sports. Among those are Taiwanese basketball, soccer from Nicaragua and Belarus, as well as Russian table tennis.