SugarHouse casino and sportsbook was rebranded BetRivers in New Jersey. The development was announced by Rush Street Interactive which owns the two gaming brands in August 2022. The name change was pretty cosmetic, products offered to users didn't witness much change. SugarHouse and BetRivers websites have always been identical as they are both products of the same parent company. The change was eventually effective in October with players noticing minor changes in the product as the featured game and promotions remained the same.
In the early days of the rebranding, both SugarHouse and BetRivers logo appeared on the online casino and sportsbook product in a bid to avoid confusions. Rush Street Interactive introduced the rebranding with a promotion the company called the "BetRivers Bonus Bash" which is an attempt to familiarize the users with the rebranding. The promotion which was available on the sportsbook and casino offered users random prizes on a daily basis after logging in. Prizes include free bets, cash bonuses, wheel spin and slot tournament entries.
Why the Rebranding Took Place
The rebranding was long expected by analysts in the gambling industry. Rush Interactive was originally a subsidiary of Rush Street Gaming, but the two brands eventually separated after Rush Street Interactive spun off to create an online division. The product created by Rush Street Interactive was known as SugarHouse Casino in the state of Pennsylvania. Rush Street Gaming on the other hand has Illinois as its home state; online casino and sports betting were not legal then in the Prairie State. With two retail casinos in Pennsylvania and online gambling waiting to launch, Rush Street Gaming decided to focus on the Keystone state with SugarHouse serving as its flagship brand within the borderline.
SugarHouse will further expand to the state of New Jersey in 2018. Online gambling has been legal in the Garden State since 2013 after it stood up to challenge the federal ban. SugarHouse can be said to arrive quite late into the New Jersey market, it was however one of the first operators to kickstart activities in Pennsylvania when the state opened the door to online gambling in 2019. Few months after its launch in Pennsylvania, Rush Street Gaming decided on exhibiting more consistency in the branding of its retail casinos. This therefore led to the renaming of SugarHouse in Pennsylvania to Rivers Philadelphia in October 2019.
Rush Street Interactive later launched BetRivers in a bid to keep its retail and online product coordinated. This was at a time in which legalization of sports betting was occuring in more American states. It was then thought by analysts in the industry that SugarHouse in Pennsylvania will be merged into BetRivers. It was also believed that the product in New Jersey will also be renamed. However, Rush Street Interactive decided to keep operating both brands in Pennsylvania and let SugarHouse live on in New Jersey; a decision the firm has chosen to reconsider alongside its parent company.
As Rush Street Gaming continued to work towards ensuring a unified brand among its products, SugarHouse online casino and sportsbook in New Jersey was rebranded to BetRivers, with the products not affected and users activities not disturbed.
SugarHouse Lives on in Pennsylvania; at Least For a While
SugarHouse had one of its early launches in the state of Pennsylvania and the brand won't completely die off within the state. Rush Street Interactive has chosen to operate the SugarHouse and BetRivers brand alongside each other in the Keystone state. Although BetRivers has become the flagship brand in online casino and sports betting for Rush Street Interactive, the company has chosen to let both brands continue operation in Pennsylvania.
BetRivers and SugarHouse have an identical betting platform as well as similar app features in Pennsylvania; it is pretty difficult to identify the sportsbooks' differences at first glance. The two online gambling platforms also operate the same form of promotion code as well as loyalty program in Pennsylvania. However, industry analysts expect SugarHouse to rebrand to BetRivers in the nearest future as Rush Street Interactive moves to unites its brands.
SugarHouse is here to stay in Connecticut
SugarHouse became the third sportsbook to receive a license in the state of Connecticut in 2021 after securing a deal with the state lottery. Connecticut sports betting received approval of the Legislature in 2021 after the state government reached an agreement with two gaming tribes. The tribes got the exclusive rights to operate an online casino in return for the Connecticut Lottery to compete with them in the online sports betting space. After FanDuel and DraftKings reached an agreement with the Mohegans and Mashantucket Pequots respectively, there was only a third betting skin which belongs to Connecticut Lottery left.
BetMGM was seen as favorite to wrap up the deal with the state lottery but the tribes insisted the lottery's partner cannot use any branding associated with a retail casino competitor. The tribes have a longstanding legal battle with MGM Resorts International, a co-owner of the BetMGM sportsbook. This led to Rush Street Interactive eventually sealing the deal with the state lottery. Going by the contract term, the BetRivers brand can't be used in Connecticut as the Rivers Casino is also a competing product with the tribes. SugarHouse was acceptable because the SugarHouse Casino is no longer in existence.
Therefore, as long as Rush Street Interactive wishes to honor the contract with Connecticut Lottery and continue operation in the state online sports betting industry, it has to use the SugarHouse sportsbook brand. This obviously gives some assurance that the SugarHouse brand will not go into extinction anytime soon.
The Current Structure
SugarHouse continues to exist among the portfolios of Rush Street Interactive. The brand will be operated by the Chicago-based company alongside BetRivers. On the current structure, BetRivers will maintain operations in fourteen states while SugarHouse has only two. BetRivers is available in Arizona, Colorado, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Louisiana, Maryland, Michigan, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia and West Virginia. SugarHouse on the other hand operates only in Pennsylvania and Connecticut.
Rush Street Interactive therefore continues to maintain a top spot in the American online gambling industry. The New York-listed company is currently well grounded in business in 15 American states in both the online and retail space. Analysts believe the company will seek to launch operations in other states in the near future as the company possesses much room for expansion across the country.
