Could Elk Grove’s new Sky River Casino have a plush sportsbook for you to bet on games?

The colossal sportsbook arena at Circa Resort and Casino in Las Vegas is known as the “Three Stories of Glory.”

Here, giant waves of high-definition video monitors wash over a 350-seat theater bowl and an on-site broadcasting studio is perched close to the action. The setting at Circa presents a new experience for sports bettors.

“It’s a unique atmosphere,” said Josh Francois, an executive at Daktronics, the South Dakota-based video display firm that worked to bring the Circa sportsbook to life.

The Las Vegas-based UC Davis graduate possesses perhaps the coolest business card in the industry: He’s Daktronics’ managing director for spectaculars — the immense, glowing high-definition video displays that are the firm’s bread and butter.

“You’re immersed in this massive screen – it’s like going to the movies on steroids, multiple games that are on,” Francois said. “It’s a different experience.”

The future casino sports betting experience would seem to be exactly where you would expect it to be: in more-is-more Las Vegas and new-generation gaming destinations like Circa.

But it could very well be in Elk Grove.

The Wilton Rancheria and Las Vegas-based Boyd Gaming are hard at work on the $400 million Sky River Casino, with its planned late 2022 opening.

Tribal gaming is on the California ballot in November 2022. Gaming newcomer Wilton Rancheria and other gaming tribes across the state are banking on the measure that would again alter the gambling landscape, opening the door to sportsbooks on tribal lands – and to the future of sports betting in the nation’s most populous state.

Heavy hitters in sports-crazed Southern California from the Pechanga Band of Luiseno Indians in Temecula, to San Diego’s Viejas Band of Kumeyaay Indians and the Agua Caliente Band of Mission Indians out in Palm Springs are at the table with the Wilton.

Why not? U.S. commercial gaming set a new record exceeding $11 billion in revenue in the first quarter of 2021, according to the American Gaming Association, after a 2020 that was largely lost to the pandemic.

Sports betting set a record for the same quarter with $961.1 million, according to the gaming association’s figures, outpacing 2019’s entire-year total of $909 million.

Even before the record numbers were released, online casino industry journal Casino.org last December proclaimed that “No sector of the gaming industry is hotter than sports betting.”

What a Sky River sportsbook experience would look like is far from clear. The answer assumes a lot, most importantly, whether the initiative – still nearly 17 months away — wins on Election Day.

But Francois said casino veterans Boyd Gaming (The Orleans, Gold Coast) may see a gleaming new Sky River as a blank canvas for a bold sportsbook design, especially in a highly competitive Northern California market, which also compete with the Nevada casinos a short drive away in Lake Tahoe and Reno. Boyd already has an online gaming presence with its BConnected Sports app.

Sky River has a better hand

Sky River would also have a jump on nearby casinos having to figure out how to squeeze sportsbooks into their existing spaces.

“When we work on new construction with developers and casino folks, (we ask about) viewing angles. How many screens do you want to show? What do you want the experience to feel like? Do you want a ‘man cave?’ Open space?” Francois said.

“Is it something like four screens at a time, like March Madness first round, or is it an NFL Sunday with eight windows? Where are people going to be sitting? Where’s the odds boards? People want to be able to place (bets) by phone. It’s a much more interactive experience than ever before.”

Reimagining the casino sportsbook

Wilton Rancheria tribal chairman Jesus Tarango declined to comment for this story. In Yolo County, a spokesman for the Yocha Dehe Wintun Nation, which runs Cache Creek Casino Resort and has already pumped $2 million into the initiative campaign, declined to comment on any plans for a sportsbook there.

Any speculation, Ben Deci said, would be “putting the cart before the horse.”

But Circa’s sensory overload sportsbook could point a way to California’s gaming future.

“We worked with architects and the owners and asked, ‘What do you want?’” Francois said. “They said they wanted a Disneyland for the sports fan: an immersive sportsbook, theater seating, tote board. They wanted to get away from the dark, dank, smoky casino sportsbook. They wanted that immersive feel.”

And the gaming tribes’ ballot push comes just as casino resorts across the country are reconsidering – and reimagining – the sportsbook.

“The sportsbook was an amenity. Now, it’s absolutely a profit maker,” Francois of Daktronics said. “You go back five, 10 years ago. A hotel and casino would have sports betting as an amenity to make it a full-service resort. Now, it’s definitely a profit center. Sports handicappers are so good – these guys are definitely looking at it as a for-profit business more than ever before.”