The Delaware Lottery has reported its first online casino revenue numbers since relaunching with BetRivers, and it is immediately apparent that the market’s poor performance over the past decade was primarily related to its previous operator partner. In the first month since operations changed hands, the state’s iGaming revenue was nearly triple what it had been. Delaware first cracked $1 million in monthly revenue during the 2020 retail casino closures and had never exceeded $1.5 million until now. In January 2024, however, BetRivers net winnings on behalf of the Lottery totaled $3.4 million.

Delaware was the first state to launch legal online casinos in late 2013 and chose 888 Holdings to run them as a monopoly in partnership with the Lottery. However, the state’s per capita revenue has always been pitiful compared to New Jersey, which launched one month later, and other states that came after. While the rest of the iGaming state markets have consistently grown by double-digit percentages each year, Delaware’s annual growth rate has frequently dipped into the negatives, especially in the latter half of 2023.

888’s ten-year contract expired last year, and the Lottery solicited proposals to decide whether to renew with 888 or select a new partner. Aside from 888, only BetRivers’ owner Rush Street Interactive (RSI) answered the call and ultimately won the contract. With it running the state’s three online gambling sites, players benefit from:

 - A much larger catalog of casino games
 - Sports betting
 - A platform that’s consistently among the top five in other iGaming states

On the other hand, they’ve temporarily lost access to online poker. 888 is the technology provider for WSOP.com‘s US operations, so Delaware had been part of that network until the change in operator. RSI owns Run It Once Poker and plans to launch it in the US but has not yet done so.

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