Metlife Stadium may soon become a mecca for in-stadium sports betting.
The home of the Giants, Jets and the XFL’s Guardians already has a brick-and-mortar sportsbook just steps from the stadium’s entranceways. And now it has the green light from the NFL to allow sports betting within stadium grounds.
There is a catch, however.
The NFL has OK’d “sports betting lounges” at stadiums that exist within a state that offers legal sports wagering. These lounges will not feature traditional sportsbook betting windows or kiosks.
Instead, the lounges will likely feature dozens of TVs set to the NFL Red Zone channel. The TV feeds will be accompanied by updated betting lines and prop bet offers by whichever sportsbook coughs up enough money to sponsor the lounge.
FanDuel domination
It’s easy to envision something like this at MetLife starting this fall: “Metlife Stadium Sports Betting Lounge – sponsored by FanDuel.”
FanDuel Sportsbook already has a presence in the Meadowlands as it has been operating a highly successful brick-and-mortar book right outside of Metlife for over a year-and-a-half.
During the NFL season FanDuel Sportsbook at The Meadowlands rakes in around $2.6 million per month, making it the most profitable retail book in the state of New Jersey.
The spot has continually been the most popular location for New York City sports bettors looking for action.
FanDuel accounted for nearly half of New Jersey sports betting revenue in 2019 with more than $149 million through its Meadowlands Racetrack license, according to Legal Sports Report.
FanDuel would be logical choice to sponsor such a lounge inside the stadium given the built-in relationship. Though they could face some competition from rival DraftKings, which has been a leader in getting fantasy sports lounges placed in NFL stadiums the past few years.
DraftKings has fantasy lounges already set up at AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas, Gillette Stadium in Foxboro, Massachusetts, and at Arrowhead Stadium in Kansas City, Missouri.
The NFL is coming around to sports betting
We are slowly but surely seeing sports betting integration by the NFL. Considering that 14 of the league’s 32 home states are expected to have legal sports betting by the start of the 2020 season, and you begin to see that Roger Goodell really has no choice but to start to embrace sports betting culture.
NFL announcers aren’t yet openly talking about the spread of the game during a contest, and there is rarely any betting info in the ticker that runs across the bottom of the screen during league broadcasts. But that could change rapidly, and as soon as this fall.
“We feel good about how it’s evolved state by state,” NFL chief strategy and growth officer Chris Halpin told ESPN last week. “We’re more and more excited about how sports betting is developing and we’re now doing more in the space. We’re very positive about how it’s developing.
