Want to Build an Online Sports-Betting Empire? Start With a Gas Station Casino
$6,000 Welcome Bonus
LOVELOCK, Nev.—West Hollywood entrepreneur Mark Thomas walked into the Big Wheel Casino, tucked inside a Conoco gas station off Interstate 80, and surveyed his next big deal.
About 50 slot machines with names like Wheel of Fortune and Wild Wolf chimed and flashed in the race-car-themed gambling room. The casino, about 90 miles from Reno, mostly draws truckers and miners, and the room was fairly empty that day. A gambler or two occasionally strolled in and out.
Mr. Thomas is buying the truck-stop casino to be the centerpiece of the digital sports-betting company he co-founded, ZenSports. The company’s app launched internationally in 2019, and now Mr. Thomas is looking to start taking bets in the U.S.
“It’s very far removed from this,” Mr. Thomas said, amid the faint smell of smoke. “Maybe the opposite.”
The marriage of the two comes as a quirk of the U.S. sports-betting industry—a being built on a patchwork of new state laws and old gambling regulations.
