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It opened as a riverboat in 1996 but has since moved to land. The property has 25,000 square feet of gaming space and 251 hotel rooms. The venue also features a Caesars Sportsbook. Horseshoe Council Bluffs. Horseshoe Council Bluffs is one of three casinos in the city of Council Bluffs. Formerly a greyhound race track, the venue now has a 68,000. Located on the casino’s main floor, the 5,300-square-foot race and sports book provides a best-in-class sports wagering experience. The technology for the sports book is complemented with a high-resolution LED video wall of more than a dozen 85-inch televisions. Horseshoe Council Bluffs casino is home of the best odds, highest limits and the biggest jackpots. Wrapping up: Reasons to visit Horseshoe Casino Council Bluffs. Sports bettors will find a state-of-the-art book, along with mobile betting options at Horseshoe Casino Council Bluffs. Promotions, including “ Bet $50, Get $50,” are only available to online bettors. Horseshoe RV Park at Horseshoe Casino in Council Bluffs Iowa provides partial hookup RV camping adjacent to a gaming casino. Near the intersection of I-80 and I-29 the park provides sites in a designated area. The sites are compacted a bit tight to access but guests have immediate access to the large gaming and resort complex.

Iowa’s online and retail sports betting options are set to expand again.

Two Iowa casinos, Harrah’s Council Bluffs and Horseshoe Council Bluffs Ti free slots play. , decided to step into the sports betting pond recently.

The Iowa Racing and Gaming Commission (IRGC) approved operator agreements between the casinos’ owner, Harvey’s Management Iowa, and two sports betting brands.

One of those contracts will bring UnibetSportsbook to the Hawkeye State.

Details of the deals for Harrah’s and Horseshoe Council Bluffs

On July 9, the IRGC approved Harvey’s contracts with Unibet and William Hill sportsbooks. Currently, Harrah’s and Horseshoe casinos offer retail wagering under their own branding.

William Hill is already licensed to offer online betting in Iowa and does so under the auspices of multiple casinos in the state. The partnership with William Hill will benefit Iowa bettors, although temporary.

Since IA bettors have to register for online sportsbook accounts in person for the remainder of the year, the William Hill partnership gives bettors another place to complete that process.

It’s unclear how soon either Harvey’s property will be ready to facilitate sportsbook registrations. The same goes for Unibet.

Unibet’s launch may be longer, however, as it has not yet applied for licensure in Iowa. To date, the online sportsbook is being tight-lipped. Unibet may plan to wait until the in-person registration requirement expires. It wouldn’t be the only brand that is playing a waiting game in IA.

Will the new year bring new betting options in IA?

Another prominent sports betting brand, FanDuel, only operates in Iowa on a retail basis. FanDuel has been mum on when it plans to start accepting wagers online in IA.

The sportsbook may also be waiting for the in-person registration requirement to expire. Moreover, it may not feel the market in Iowa is worth the cost of admission.

William Hill has established itself as the dominant player in the online IA sports betting scene. Last month, over 57% of online handle in IA ran through William Hill.

Disrupting that landscape for FanDuel or Unibet will require a significant amount of capital. Both brands may not be overly anxious to do that in a market that accounted for just $58.02 million in handle in January.

Iowa’s dense and small population, plus lack of professional sports teams, do nothing to augment its case. The current COVID-19 pandemic doesn’t help, either.

Fragile circumstances give cause for caution

The pandemic affects the sports betting industry in IA in two ways. First, it controls the menu of sporting events available for wagering and secondly, affects the status of IA casinos.

For the better part of three months, only those who registered their online wagering accounts prior to March 16 could legally place wagers in IA because the state’s casinos were closed.

Positive tests for the coronavirus in IA are rising, hitting a state record of 916 new cases on July 10. Should that trend continue, casinos closing again could be on the horizon.

Other similar trends nationwide may affect the sporting events that sportsbooks rely upon as well. For example, the status of college football is unknown, with the Big Ten Conference already curtailing its schedule.

These fluid situations may give Unibet reasons to take a wait-and-see approach. It has already cleared the first necessary regulatory hurdle, so Iowans may eventually have access to the sportsbook.

• Mobile and online sports betting are now available through two Council Bluffs casinos.
• Omaha, Nebraska is less than five miles from Council Bluffs which allows Nebraskans to drive over the border and wager on the Cornhuskers with the apps the way New Yorkers drive into New Jersey.
• Iowa made a record handle for the month of September in sports bets with $72 million prior to the addition of these four new mobile sports wagering platforms.

COUNCIL BLUFFS, Iowa – Four casinos in Council Bluffs, Iowa have been licensed for online and mobile sportsbooks by the Iowa Racing and Gaming Commission.

These platforms are something new for the town as they’ve only offered retail sports betting up until now.

To make the news that much better for the Iowa sports bettor, these new mobile options are accessible from anywhere in the state and are not confined to only the area of Council Bluffs for use.

The Details Of The Newest Sports Wagering Option For Iowans

William Hill US will be one of the mobile sports wagering outlets available. They have partnered with Caesars Entertainment for both the Harrah’s and Horseshoe locations as each casinos’ official sportsbook operator.

The retail sportsbooks of these facilities are also run by William Hill US. Gamblers in the state can download the application anywhere in Iowa and begin betting on sporting events.

While this is great news for the Hawkeye State, neighboring states can also benefit from these new offerings. Diehard Cornhuskers fans in Omaha, Nebraska can take a drive over state lines and use these applications to wager on all types of sports matchups.

Omaha is less than a five-mile drive away from Council Bluffs and that drive is even less than five miles as players only need to be in Iowa state lines to gamble with the mobile app.

“If you are a resident out of state — you could establish an account anywhere — but those wagers cannot take place until the customer is in the borders of the state,” saidBrian Ohorilko, Iowa Racing and Gaming administrator. “Every one of these online sports wagering companies have sophisticated geolocation technology that blocks wagers outside of the state. So, a customer that may live in Omaha for example, they could establish an account, but they couldn’t use that account until they drove into the state of Iowa. And then at that point, those customers can wager and those accounts would be activated.”

What’s To Come

Council Bluffs has already done plenty of business in the sports betting industry with its land-based sportsbooks due to their location being so near the border of Nebraska.

They bring in a considerable amount of out of state business as Nebraska does not yet have a legal sports betting market of their own.

The Hawkeye State made a new record for September 2020 seeing $72 million in handle on sports bets. With online and mobile sports wagering platforms now available for Council Bluffs, the sky is the limit in terms of revenue and handle that can be made.

Retail locations have only allowed the city to get local business by those visiting the brick and mortar sportsbooks but now with their mobile platform being eligible for statewide business, they will have a much larger audience of potential sports bettors within their reach.

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And launching these applications during football season will boost fan engagement exponentially as football season is the biggest season for sports betting operations across the nation.

Horseshoe Casino Council Bluffs Sportsbook

News tags: Brian Ohorilko Caesars Entertainment Cornhuskers Council Bluffs Harrahs Horseshoe Iowa Iowa Racing and Gaming Commission Nebraska NFL Omaha William Hill US

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Christina has been writing for as long as she can remember and does dedicated research on the newly regulated sports betting market. She comes from a family of sports lovers that engage in friendly bets from time to time. During the winter months, you can find Christina baking cookies and beating the entire staff at Mario Kart…the N64 version of course.