Caesars has rebranded its online gambling platforms in Ontario with the launch of its Caesars Palace online casino app.
Since the launch of Ontario’s open online gambling market in April of 2022, the Caesars online sportsbook and casino options have been available under one Caesars app. That app, now rebranded as the Caesars Sportsbook, still allows play through Caesars’ Ontario online casino. But that online casino has limited offerings compared to what is available on the Caesars Palace app.
On the company’s second quarter earnings call held on Aug. 1, Caesars CEO Tom Reeg said the Caesars Palace app will offer full integration with the Caesars Rewards program available at the company’s retail casinos. Also, users will find many more options much more than the company’s online casino available on its original Ontario online gambling app.
“In terms of capabilities — bonusing, segmentation, proprietary games, live dealers — it is lightyears beyond [the original online casino] that grew iGaming revenue to 27% in the quarter,” Reeg said. “We are fully aware that we have seen significant competition in the iCasino space. We don’t expect that we’re just going to come in and run everybody over. But we feel like we’ve got the product to start to build market share.”
Why a standalone Caesars Palace Ontario online casino app?
Considering the trend is consolidating all online gambling operations in one app, Caesars is somewhat bucking that by separating its Ontario online sportsbook and online casino operations into two separate apps.
On the earnings call, Eric Hession, president of Caesars sports and online gaming, said the Caesars Palace app is part of the company’s plan to grow market share in the five North American jurisdictions where it operates online casinos.
“We’re finally going to have a competitive product out in the market that we can use to work with our existing database, to have those customers that we know and that are loyal to the Caesars Rewards program move over to the online casino side,” Hession said. “It was difficult to have that discussion with the customers when they had to go through the sports betting app each time to get to the casino.
“And so they won’t have [to do] that… We haven’t been able to really do segmented marketing in any degree so far with the existing tech that we had. The new system that we have will allow us to create segmentation and it’ll allow us to reinvest, like we do on the [retail] casino side and to use a lot of those experiences.”
Caesars Rewards members can accrue points through the Caesars Palace app and use them interchangeably with the Caesars Sportsbook and all Caesars retail casinos worldwide
Online casinos are king in Ontario
As PlayCanada previously reported, online casinos are much more important to operators in Ontario.
In its first fiscal year (April 2022 – March 31, 2023), about 67% of total Ontario online gambling revenue came from online casinos.
However, the gap is growing between online casinos and sports betting and poker in Ontario. In the first quarter of fiscal year 2023-24 (from April 1 to June 30, 2023), 72% of the revenue in Ontario came from online casinos and 83% of the total bets (handle) came from online casinos.
By comparison, Ontario sports betting handle of $2 billion in Q1 only accounted for 14% of total bets and 25% of revenue. Poker bets of $350 million and revenue of $15 million accounted for 2.5% of handle and 2.8% of revenue.
Online sports betting also has much smaller margins than online casinos. So, it only makes sense that Ontario operators would focus on driving business toward online casinos.
It also is one of the main reasons Ontario is home to the most online gambling operators in North America and, perhaps, the world.
At last count, Ontario was home to 50 live operators offering 74 separating gaming sites. And more are in the pipeline to launch.
Caesars plans marketing spend for new app
The Caesars Palace app had a soft launch in mid-July and now is fully live in Ontario.
Find out what Caesars Palace is offering new users here.
During the earnings call, Reeg said that the company would be active in promoting its new app. Though, the marketing spend would be much less than when the Caesars Sportsbook app launched.
“We are fully aware that we have seen significant competition in the iCasino space. We don’t expect that we’re just going to come in and run everybody over. But we feel like we’ve got the product to start to build market share, and wrapping that into Caesars rewards has been and will continue to be powerful for that business.”
The new Caesars Palace app will offer a similar interface, but will have an expanded library of hundreds of new online casino games. New slot titles and table games will only appear on the new app and not in the casino offered on the Caesars Sportsbook app.
Login information for the Caesars Palace app remains the same. Reward credits and player balances will transfer over.
