Churchill Downs Adds 50 New Jobs As it Moves to Offer Online Gaming

Louisville based casino and racetrack company Churchill Downs Inc., has moved to add 50 new positions as it attempts to offer online gambling. The company may not be looking to launch an American internet casino, like in Delaware, but individual games and betting that fits under the regulations in place.

Churchill already has an online arm, with its online horse racing website TwinSpires. With the December 2011 relaxation of American gambling laws muddying the waters around online gambling, Louisville wants to take advantage, such as it has with TwinSpires and other simulcasting efforts in horse racing.

With UK based consultancy firm H2 Gambling Capital recently estimating that gambling firms had revenues of $30 billion annually from online real-money gambling alone – with Europe accounting for the majority of that – it is hoped that the US can be a major online player in years to come, after gambling legislation is cleared up to allow internet casinos. With potential revenues of $7.4 billion by 2017, states will be keen to get their slice of the action.

Another area where Churchill is expanding into is mobile betting, with the recent launch of their Luckity mobile and online site. This website allows punters to play games for money, based upon horse racing, and signals another area where the company are testing the waters around the changed US gambling laws.

With Churchill also recently having acquired Atlanta based Bluff Media – who focus upon poker with a website and magazine – their entry into the online poker market is seen to be pretty certain. Poker in the US continues to see massive popularity, and with Churchill moving more and more of their services online, it is an area of potential growth.

This comes on the back of Delaware’s launch of America’s first online casino. Since regulation changes, they are the first state to launch, though Nevada and New Jersey are close behind and California expects movement in 2014.