Bally’s shutters in-house-built Bally Bet ahead of Kambi transition

Bally’s Corporation has confirmed the closure of the Bally Bet app, pending a transfer of the sportsbook product onto Kambi sports betting platform later this year.

Issuing an update on Bally Bet’s website homepage, the New York-listed operator informed users it will cease taking bets from today, 22 June, with the accounts rendered inaccessible by 30 June.

Customers have until that date to withdraw any balances, with functionality being reduced over the intervening period, pending the deactivation of all accounts on 30 June.

However, Bally’s confirmed that users in Arizona would be unaffected by these changes.

The planned migration follows Bally’s agreeing a sportsbook technology supply partnership with Kambi, concluded in May 2023. A revamped Bally Bet sportsbook app powered by Kambi is expected to launch next year.

The agreement covers products, content and trading on both retail and online sportsbook technology.

Additionally, Bally’s maintains the option, subject to the satisfaction of “certain material performance metrics”, to acquire a licence to a limited part of Kambi’s online and retail technology source code.

In the event that Bally’s chooses to exercise the option and pay an agreed sum, Bally’s and Kambi would enter into a separate long-term outsourcing agreement in relation to Kambi’s range of modularised services.

The partnership signals the end of Bally’s attempts to improve its own sports betting technology, envisioned initially by then-CEO Lee Fenton as Bally Bet 2.0, a wholesale revamp culminating in a completely redesigned app.

Bally’s initially launched Bally Bet in Colorado and Iowa, before rolling out the 2.0 version across New York, Arizona, Indiana and Virginia. It has struggled for market share in these states, often falling behind the likes of DraftKings, FanDuel and BetMGM, and took the step of delaying its own launch in New York in February 2022, a decision which cost the firm market share in  a crucial first mover state.

The operator further looked to improving its sportsbook fortunes with the $125m acquisition of Bet.Works in June 2021, adding to its earlier DFS acquisition, MonkeyKnifeFight, which the firm purchased in January of 2021.

However, the process has not been plain sailing, and has been hampered by technology delays, something which Fenton’s replacement, Robeson Reeves, spoke extensively about following his promotion to CEO.

Reeves, the former CFO of Bally’s, admitted in February that the business had been slow to react to technology failings of the Bet.Works platform, suggesting there were far more “economic and nimble” technology platforms available.

Meanwhile, MonkeyKnifeFight was closed down by Bally’s in March after five years of operation.