Hall of Fame Resort & Entertainment Company (NASDAQ:HOFV) Q3 2022 Earnings Call Transcript

Jack Vander Aarde: Excellent. And then if I could just get a couple more questions on one last topic. Congrats on securing this the sports betting license from Ohio, the Ohio Casino Control Commission. Two things here. Just to clarify, are you still waiting for an official license or just can you help us understand what else is left to do besides just waiting for Jan 1 to allow you guys to start setting activities. And then also, do you have any initial expectations for your sports betting operations, whether it be number of wagers, number of bets, place, gross gaming revenue, I don’t know, whatever you could share there would be helpful. Thanks.

Michael Crawford: Yes, not anything we can share today about the expectations. I think we have worked with our partners on pro formas for those things. I can tell you that I’m excited about the opportunity, but not prepared yet to share the expectations around numbers. We will be the only retail sports book in Stark County, which is a fairly big county in Ohio. And the immersive environment that we’re going to create there. We haven’t talked about the food and beverage side of this experience yet. It’s going to be really high quality and one of a kind, and I’ll tell you a brand that people are going to be excited about. I know I am. I think what you’re going to see from a betting point of view is Ohio is very favorable towards this, and the rules and the taxing and everything that has been set up is really exciting to the sports betting partners.

One thing to note when you say congratulations on obtaining the licenses, thank you very much for that. But I don’t think our shareholders really understood that there were only a few at large licenses to be obtained. In Ohio, the sports franchises, the sports tournaments were already guaranteed sports betting licenses, and so I think in total there was 25 roughly that were available. We’re the only one that I know of right now outside of those guaranteed licenses that was approved by the state of Ohio, which really goes to show you how impactful what we’re doing in this community and in this state is, it’s an economic driver, not only for our company, but for our region. And I think the casino €“ Ohio Casino Control Commission saw that, valued that and wanted us to have those licenses.

Now to your question about conditional approval, yes, it’s conditional approval because as you go through the process, you still have to meet the stipulations around the rules and you have to show the experience and the security of the experience and everything else. We have absolutely no concerns about that at all. We’re working very closely with our partners. You can imagine from a mobile technology point of view, they want to make sure that guest data and information is very secure. So it’s the €“ you have the approval, it’s just conditioned upon all of the things that the checklist items that you have to have in place, just like launching any new business. And our partners are all over it. We’re all over it, and so we expect to come Jan 1, we’re ready to go.

Tara Charnes: Yes. I would just add that Mike then RSI, our retail sports betting operator partner has also received conditional approval at this point, and better is far down that track and continuing to work very closely with the commission to ensure its approval.

Jack Vander Aarde: Excellent. Fantastic. I really appreciate the color guys. That’s it for me. Thanks.

Michael Crawford: Thanks, Jack. Have a good day.

Operator: Thank you. Our next question will be from David Marsh, Singular Research. Please go ahead.

David Marsh: Hi, good morning. Thanks for taking the questions and again congrats on the good momentum. Just one quick little housekeeping item on the sports betting side. It seemed pretty clear and the press release that the online sports betting would be ready to go Jan 1, was the retail also be ready to go Jan 1?