WASHINGTON — Ted Leonsis confirmed the worst-kept secret in Washington sports Wednesday afternoon, that the Monumental Sports Chairman has decided to transform The Green Turtle restaurant at Capital One Arena into the District's first (legal) sports-gaming book.
Speaking in front of an audience at the MGM National Harbor, a day before the three-day sports betting executive summit kicked off, the majority owner of the Wizards and Capitals announced it was official: the longtime wings-and-sliders restaurant, the only establishment in the arena independently owned before Monumental purchased it last month, will morph into a sports-betting hub in the next year.
Leonsis also went out of his way to say the operator of the sports book will be independent from Monumental management, thereby ensuring no conflict-of-interest problems with either the NBA or the NHL.
"And so they'll be a sports book in the building, accessible from outside," Leonsis said Monday, referring to the Greene Turtle's F Street entrance. "Depending on the league...it might be accessible from the inside as well. And they'll place bets. And that's who will settle up, that's where they'll be paid....I don't think guys will come to us and say, 'Oh, your guy missed a 3-point shot. I didn't cover the spread.' They're gonna go, 'I gotta settle my bet now.' Which they're doing now, but off shore."
In his WUSA9 interview in February, Leonsis made clear he is more than ready to dive into the sports-betting industry after years of it being taboo among North American major revenue sports leagues.
Leonsis said betting information would be available as early as April to Capital One Arena patrons, but the actual construction and building of the sports book probably won't make wagering a reality until the end of the year at the earliest. "The vision would be that we would take our building and re-imagine it," Leonsis. said. "Instead of it being a building that opens at 6 at night and closes at 10 o'clock...." He promptly went off on a tangent how wrong it is that his building does not already keep Vegas hours.
"We pay for this building 24 hours a day. And we have a cage up -- we don't want anyone going into the building! It's really remarkable...As opposed to when you go into Las Vegas and they keep it open 24 hours a day and they're pumping in oxygen..."
"So we would like to re-imagine the arena and take a big piece of real estate and then partner with someone who is great at developing a sports book. But then the environment around that -- someone that would construct and build a beautiful restaurant with fine food and high fidelity of bandwidth to deliver the information, and big screens that would subscribe to rugby games and soccer games and tennis matches. And maybe someone would just want to come in and have lunch and be with their friends and make some bets."
Leonsis, a venture capitalist and investor, doesn’t bet himself. As owner of the Wizards, Capitals, WNBA’s Mystics, the G League’s Capital City Go-Go and two Arena football teams, he understands the potential for an incredible ancillary revenue stream.
Leonsis told WUSA9 in February he plans to educate prospective bettors as best he can before the real thing happens by 2020.
According to an AP report by Tim Reynolds in February, “some Wizards games now have an alternate feed, where the potential bettors get to see in real time what in-game betting will look like.”
''Right now, the people who go to casinos to gamble, it's a small community and it generates $8-10 billion a year in revenues and play,'' Leonsis said. ''But there's probably $100 billion that's in the shadows by really sophisticated gamblers. And obviously the first step is we want to get that audience that's gaming illegally to come into the sunlight."
After the U.S. Supreme Court decided to allow sports betting on a state-by-state basis, it is now available in eight states, with Pennsylvania being the only one right now that allows betting and has an NBA franchise within its borders. And mobile betting, which is enormously popular in Europe, is really only in a couple of U.S. states."
A Monumental executive, on condition of anonymity, told WUSA9 they hoped to begin construction on the sports book as soon as zoning ordinances and plans are approved. But the official would not give a firm timetable on when the sports book would open.