On Friday (2 August) the Arizona Department of Gaming (ADoG) awarded two tribal-tethered event wagering licences. Sporttrade, currently live in Iowa, New Jersey and Colorado, and UK-based Plannatech are now approved to offer digital betting.
Both companies will be tethered to tribes. Sporttrade will partner with the Quechan Indian tribe of the Fort Yuma Indian reservation and Plannatech will partner with San Carlos Apache Tribal Gaming Enterprise.
The Quechan tribe was formerly partnered with Unibet, which exited the state earlier this year. The San Carlos Apache were partnered with WynnBet, which is unwinding its platform across the country.
Sporttrade offers exchange wagering in New Jersey and has technology that allows an experience similar to playing the stock market. But the company has struggled to convince other regulators to allow this type of betting. It is live in Colorado and Iowa as a traditional sportsbook.
It is not apparent that Arizona allows exchange wagering.
Who is Plannatech?
Plannatech is headquartered in the Isle of Man and, according to its LinkedIn site, is a “B2B platform provider with innovative and leading edge technology”. According to Sports Handle, Plannatech runs the backend for Prime Sports, which is live in New Jersey and Ohio.
The ADoG opened its application window in July. At that time, it said it would award a minimum of one tribal and professional sports franchise licence. By law, the state has 20 licences it can award, 10 each to tribal casinos and pro sports franchises.
Since then, one more tribal licence has come available after SuperBook shuttered its platforms outside of Nevada in July. SuperBook was partnered with the Fort Mojave Indian tribe. It’s likely that ADoG will open another window in the future to award that licence.
On the pro franchise side, eight Arizona event wagering licences were initially claimed and it appears that no other pro franchises in the state can qualify under the law. Since the application window opened, SaharaBets shuttered after owner Alex Meruelo sold team assets to a Utah group and then failed to secure land to build an arena in the Phoenix area.
