D.C.’s official sports betting app sees temporal outage on Super Bowl day

On Sunday, the day of the Super Bowl, Washington D.C.’s official sports betting app, GambetDC, became unavailable because of technical issues, showing error messages to iOS users. The operator said Monday that the service was now working and that the D.C. gaming office was assessing the financial loss.

This marks the latest issue for the sports betting app, which has been frequently criticized after D.C.’s chief financial officer asked the D.C. Council to approve a no-bid contract to start city-operated sports betting in 2019. The app rolled out in 2020 and was met with disapproval by residents over poor odds and technical issues, and lags behind private competitors in revenue.

On Sunday, noted that hopeful bettors could still use the Android app or place bets through GambetDC’s website or in person at 39 retail locations. In a later tweet, GambetDC said it would offer users a $10 in-game bet for the inconvenience.

The official statement from @DCLottery on @GambetDC: pic.twitter.com/Pq87k2Iatc

— Martin Austermuhle (@maustermuhle) February 13, 2022

Since its launch, GambetDC's revenue has been far below projections. Officials forecast that the app and website would net tens of millions in revenue for the District. But it made only $230,000 in the first eight months of fiscal 2021, lottery official Craig Lindsey said last year, as reported by the Washington Post.

In the wake of technical issues Sunday, D.C. Council member Elissa Silverman tweeted: “When 5 [D.C. Council] members including myself voted against this contract, we knew it was bad but even I didn’t foresee it being this abysmal.”

Hi there! We have provided a free $10 bet to be used in game for this inconvenience. Please let me know if we can assist with anything else! https://t.co/PViAQOfnFT

— GambetDC (@GambetDC) February 14, 2022

In a statement Monday, Nicole Jordan of the Office of Lottery and Gaming said the problems occurred because the “app provider did not obtain approval from Apple for a required update,” resulting in the app’s temporary removal from the Apple iOS platform. “OLG is reviewing the impact of Sunday’s outage on sales,” the statement said.

Mayor Muriel E. Bowser said she would seek answers from the office of the city’s chief financial officer, which manages the contract. “I expect to get that explanation,” Bowser said, Washington Post reports. “Obviously, if we’re going to have any system in the government, including for sports betting … it should work. It should especially work on the biggest sports day of the year.”

GeoComply, which provides geolocation data for the gaming industry, reported on Monday that it had identified more than 80.1 million transactions related to the Super Bowl over the weekend across the U.S., well over double (2.26x) the number for the 2021 Super Bowl. And since Friday at midnight, approximately 5.6 million unique accounts accessed legal online sportsbooks, a 95% increase from last year.

Nevada sportsbooks took in a record $179.8 million in wagers on Sunday's Super Bowl LVI, smashing the state’s four-year-old previous record for the annual NFL championship game by more than $21 million, and scoring an 8% profit at $15.4 million in revenues, the fourth-highest Super Bowl revenue total going back to 1991.