Sports bettors will have to wait another month before using the state of Oregon as their bookie.
The Oregon Lottery had hoped to roll out its much-anticipated sports betting app – Scoreboard - in time for football season. But agency officials now say it won’t go live until the end of September or mid-October.
Lottery staffers told commissioners at a recent meeting that getting the application up and running was “a mountainous task” involving the work of a large internal team and the coordination of multiple vendors. The application is now in a testing phase.
“The goal is not to give a date,” Kerry Hemphill, the lottery’s sports betting program manager told commissioners on Aug. 30. “The goal is to have a product that functions exactly how it’s supposed to” when it is rolled out to the public.
Matt Shelby, a spokesman, said the lottery was integrating an off-the-shelf sports betting application developed by its vendor, SB Tech, with an e-commerce platform the agency is developing internally. The e-commerce platform handles player registration and verification, payments and geofencing, a protection that allows only individuals within Oregon to place bets.
“We have an app. We know that works,” Shelby said. “What we’re testing is the integration of the various systems that need to talk to one another. It’s going well but we’re still a few weeks from actually having an app available in the Apple store.
“We set a goal internally of the beginning of the NFL season knowing full well that the testing and the product itself would drive the launch date.”
Chinook Winds Casino opened a sports betting lounge in Lincoln City on Aug. 27, beating the Oregon Lottery to market. The lottery’s app will allow customers to play from anywhere within the state, so it’s not clear there’s any first mover advantage. Lottery staff told commissioners last month that the bulk of initial customers for Scoreboard will be shifting away from illegal betting.
The Lottery estimates that it will earn a net profit of $37 million on $1.6 billion in sports betting during the first three years after the application is released. The Legislature has dedicated those profits to provide matching funds for public employers that make lump sum contributions to pension side accounts.