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Prior to the 2012 opening of Maryland Live!, Cordish launched a free-to-play social casino that allowed customers to become familiar with the Live! brand and to join the Live! player’s club online. This time, the site, launched in August, is a formoney iGaming site, utilizing the GAN online gaming platform. “We got about a five-month head start, and we started to build brand awareness and brand loyalty in the online space, all while giving opportunities for those customers to earn entries into the grand opening celebrations and all kinds of other prizes,” says Norton. “That was just one of a number of efforts to try to build the database quickly on the front side.” Norton adds that the GAN iGaming platform is another holdout from Maryland. “GAN was the platform that we chose back in 2011 to launch the play-for-free site in advance of Maryland,” he says, “and they’ve been our partners ever since we expanded into real-money online gaming. We did an exhaustive search of platforms, and we felt GAN gave us the best opportunity to deliver the product, the quality and the speed that we were interested in putting it into market. They’ve been good partners, and continue to refine the product.” The success of the Live! Philadelphia casino stands to grow quickly as the Covid-19 pandemic subsides—particularly when the major sports teams resume play with full attendance, when the Stadium District is typically crowded with fans and Cordish’s own Xfinity Live! attraction a couple of blocks from the
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casino is packed with customers. “Just imagine 80,000 or 90,000 fans coming in for an Eagles game, or any of the other sporting events here, and you know it’s going to play a large role here in Philadelphia,” says Billhimer. The operator has marketing partnerships either in place or in the works with all Philadelphia professional sports teams, as well as in Pittsburgh. However, in Philadelphia, the sports angle combines with the hotel to transform the property into a regional draw. “I think we’re absolutely a local/regional destination here for the South Jersey/Philadelphia metro market, but we’re going to extend our reach, given the fact that we operate in the Stadium District with four major-league teams, and visiting fans from major cities across the country,” says Billhimer. “We’re going to reach out to those individual cities and and extend our marketing arm out that far, and in conjunction with a lot of other Cordish Live! district developments in some of the other cities.” “We’re treating the Philadelphia Live! casino as a true destination resort,” says Cordish. “It’s going to have great energy and expectation for our local customers, but I expect we’ll see people come here from 200 miles out. And, with the partnerships that we’re building with the teams here in the stadium entertainment district, as people come in from out of town, we have a world-class hotel, we’ve got a world-class casino, we’ve got incredible restaurants and enter-