Presque Isle Sportsbook Review

The Presque Isle Downs is the premier Thoroughbred racetrack facility in the northwest region of Pennsylvania, and it was recently sold to Churchill Downs, Inc., for a whopping $178.9 million. That said, Churchill Downs didn’t buy Presque Isle for its horse racing market, but for the Presque Isle sportsbook, which should be launching sometime in 2019.

Once sports betting does go live in PA, the Presque Isle sportsbook review is sure to both solidify the track’s local reputation as a high-demand wagering destination and the area’s top sports betting destination.

Sports betting is legal in Pennsylvania thanks to the state’s Act 42, a law passed in 2017 that anticipated the 2018 Supreme Court overturn of the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act (1992, PASPA). Currently, the application process is underway with the Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board (PGCB), and the first sports betting shops in the state – of which Presque Isle is bound to be one – could be open to the public any day now.

Though Pennsylvania has made the bar of entry fairly high for area casinos to offer sportsbooks due to a mandatory $10 million licensing fee, most PA venues are indeed preparing to offer sports betting lounges to the public in the near future. The Presque Isle sportsbook is not yet open for business, but the new owners – Churchill Downs Incorporated – have stated that getting sports betting up and running at the venue is their top priority for 2019.

With the opening date of the Presque Isle Downs sportsbook as yet unknown, the target for the ribbon-cutting is sometime in the first two months of 2019. This means that you won’t be able to wager on the 2018 NFL Playoffs at Presque Isle, but you should be able to bet on March Madness 2019 and all of the major US sports in their entireties next season. This is certainly good news for Pennsylvania sports betting fans. And of course, because Churchill Downs is no stranger to bookmaking, you can expect Presque Isle Downs and Casino to have one of the best sportsbooks in Pennsylvania when the lounge is finally open for business. Stay tuned in the coming months for updates on the brand new Presque Isle sports betting lounge!

Once sports betting finally goes live in the state of PA, the Presque Isle sportsbook will have full-service betting options for its hundreds of thousands of annual visitors. PA residents will be able to place every kind of wager (spreads, straights, over/unders, props, futures, parlays, etc.) on every kind of major national and international sport (NFL, NBA, MLB, NHL, NCAA, NASCAR, MMA, boxing, soccer, rugby, cricket, golf, tennis, etc.).

With live betting added to the mix, Pennsylvania sportsbooks enthusiasts will have tens of thousands of wager options available to them each and every day, year-round. Over the course of an entire year of sports, then, that means that the Presque Isle sportsbook will offer action on literally millions of individual, unique wagers.

All that said, online betting at the Presque Isle sportsbook – which is undoubtedly the future – could take even longer to launch, with the infrastructure required liable to take several months to build out once physical PA sports betting lounges finally open.

However, if you live in Pennsylvania and want to bet on sports right now, you can! Simply sign up at a legal offshore sportsbook like Bovada, 5Dimes, BetOnline, SportsBetting, or another top site, and you can wager on all the athletics and sporting events you want. These books are 100% legal to use, joining is free and easy, and they’ve all been serving PA residents for over 20 years with fair lines, great customer service, and guaranteed payouts. So until the PA state authorities get their financial requirements down to accessible levels, online sports betting at these overseas books will continue to be your best option for Pennsylvania sports betting.

Once Presque Isle Downs and Casino starts offering online sports betting, you will definitely be able to wager on your mobile device at the Presque Isle sportsbook. That said, it is important to note that mobile sports betting is not the same thing as having access to a mobile sports betting app, which requires even more infrastructure and cooperation (particularly from Apple and Google).

While the native Presque Isle sportsbook iPhone app and Android spp are in the pipeline, it is unlikely that any official smartphone or tablet sports betting app will go live in Pennsylvania until sometime in the first half of 2019 at the earliest. Until then, again, PA sports bettors would do well to use the aforementioned offshore sportsbooks.

The Presque Isle Sportsbook is unlikely to offer proxy betting to its patrons, as these types of services are often against the law. Being that a proxy is most commonly used by out of state bettors that reside in a location where gambling is illegal, the practice violates the Wire Act of 1961. Unless there is a major change in the federal landscape, proxy betting will remain off the table at Presque Isle.

Even once mobile sports betting is available to PA residents via the web or an official app solution, these will be geo-fenced, requiring PA sports betting enthusiasts to physically be inside the state at the time they place their wagers. The only way to truly place a wager without physically being at a sportsbook is to use an online sportsbook such as BetOnline or SportsBetting. If new options arise, we will update our Presque Isle sportsbook review.