The house wins in gambling. Except the Washington, D.C. government is in the house.
Washington, D.C., is now open to sports betting, as are many states and cities. Only bets can be placed in designated locations. GambetDC (a D.C. Lottery website and mobile app) is the only available way to place your bet districtwide. There are reasonsJason Russell from’s GambetDC described GambetDC to be “glitchy”, with lower payouts than private betting houses.
The lottery claims it has suffered from a poor beat as part of an oversight hearing.
The GambetDC App was approved by the D.C. Council in 2018. It is currently being developed by one company at $215 million per year. The District was hoping to receive $20 million in tax revenue annually from the bets it placed. The lottery, however, admitted that it only received $1.5 million in revenue from the app during its first year of operation in 2021. After accounting for advertising costs, however, it turns out that the government did actually take in $1.5 million from the app. Loss More than 4 million dollars were spent last year.
What is the secret to this? It was much more than a frustrating interface. The service also had a poor reliability. During the Super Bowl, both iPhone and iPad users experienced a downtime. Kenyan McDuffie represents D.C.’s Ward 5. expressed concernThe app may experience a similar problem with March Madness approaching.
Gambling should be illegal rather than legal, just like many vices. The best option is to let the government manage the infrastructure for gambling. Capital One Arena’s gambling facility generated $1.8 million tax revenue in 2021 while GambetDC was bleeding money. D.C. needs to quit now and get out of the business.