Why Wynn is Pushing Back on iGaming in Massachusetts

Wynn has made its stance on iGaming known for more than a decade, but the company was even more unequivocal this week with an open letter to Massachusetts legislators discussing David Muradian’s H4431 bill, which would grant existing land-based operators the right to offer iGaming in the Bay State.

While on the face of it, the $100,000 licensing fee and relatively light 15% tax rate would seem appealing to Wynn since they are one of only three holders of the required Class 2 or Class 3 licenses that would be permitted to offer online casinos, the company has recently shut down its own online casino in New Jersey and Michigan and CEO Craig Billings has gone on record as saying that WynnBET had no realistic path to profitability.

Encore, Wynn’s $2.6 billion property in Boston Harbour generates almost $900 million a year in revenue and employs more than 3,300 people directly, with many more jobs created indirectly. The company notes that any decline in those revenue numbers would have a direct impact on the size of that labor force.

In fact, the Hotel and Hospitality Workers Union has also gone on record with the Massachusetts legislature, stating that their studies indicate that total job losses at Wynn, MGM Springfield and Plainridge Park would number over 800 direct jobs and another 2500 supporting jobs.

Despite its mixed attempts at both iGaming and online sports betting, Wynn has never been a strong proponent of online gaming. They are certainly one of the biggest international gaming brands to have almost zero iGaming presence anywhere in the world, and while they have not been overly vocal in their disdain in other venues like Illinois and Ohio, which are also weighing the pros and cons of online casinos, they have almost a billion reasons a year to make themselves heard in Massachusetts.

And while Wynn is a gaming company, generating more than $4 billion a year globally from gambling, that is only about 57% of the company’s total revenue. From a margin perspective, its high-end hotels, swanky restaurants and luxury retail are often a far safer bet than its VIP baccarat rooms.

While companies like DraftKings may relish huge player acquisition costs and be perfectly comfortable with an Average Revenue Per Unique Player (ARPU) of just over $100 a month, Wynn’s average customers probably drop that on just pre-dinner drinks.

Anything that keeps those customers from visiting their brick-and-mortar casino would probably be seen as a rightful existential threat. But it’s not just about revenue and margins. Steve Wynn, long before his exit from the company back in 2018, called online casinos “a threat to society”, “an uncontrollable medium”, and “something we want no part of”.

And Billings, who has run the company since 2022, has stated that Wynn lacked the competitive positioning to compete with DraftKings and FanDuel, and that they saw no compelling reason to pursue online gambling aggressively, given the company's brand and cost structure.

So their response can hardly come as a surprise. A Wynn-branded Massachusetts online casino offering a range of welcome bonuses and casino promo codes might seriously undermine the carefully curated luxury image the company has spent billions crafting. And every dollar wagered on a phone means nearly another dollar lost on hotel or restaurant spend.

Ultimately, Wynn’s stance is likely less about resisting innovation and more about preserving the business model on which it has built its reputation. Its resorts thrive on high-touch hospitality and deep-pocketed customers looking for experiences that can’t be found on a smartphone.

iGaming may help unlock new tax revenue for the state, but it’s worth noting that both MGM and Wynn already pay 25% of GGR, and Penn, which owns the Plainridge Park slots parlor and racetrack, pays 49%. So any shift from land-based to online play means the state is trading higher taxes for lower ones, and someone will eventually need to fill that gap.

Regardless, Wynn has made it clear that it believes that the future of gaming in the state is on a casino floor, not in the app store, and that the future of both its business and thousands of local jobs hangs in the balance.