Rush Street Interactive (RSI) announced through its subsidiaries Thursday that it will rebrand its SugarHouse online casino and sportsbook in New Jersey as BetRivers.
The change was originally to take effect on August 15 but has since been delayed, according to Dione Scott-Rogers, director of affiliate marketing for Rush Affiliates, an RSI subsidiary. A new date for the rebrand was not announced.
In a letter posted to the SugarHouse NJ website on Thursday evening, the PlaySugarHouse Management Team thanked players for their “patronage and loyalty” and advised that they would soon see BetRivers branding replacing that of SugarHouse in the Garden State.
“You are our top priority, and as such, this transition will not impact the features and experiences that you have received and enjoyed from PlaySugarHouse since 2016,” the management team said.
“From the bonus store to bingo, wheel spins to slot tournaments, player chat to our award-winning customer support. We will continue to provide the top-quality services that you expect and that we work tirelessly to deliver.”
Players were invited to an event called the BetRivers Bonus Bash, which starts on August 13. The online casino will give away daily prizes, including bonus money, wheel spins, slot tournament entries, and free bets.
The rebrand means SugarHouse Casino NJ will come to an end after nearly six years. RSI launched SugarHouse Casino NJ in September 2016.
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CEO Mentioned Rebrand During Q2 2022 Call
Richard Schwartz, CEO of RSI, mentioned the rebrand during an earnings call to discuss Q2 2022 last week.
“We allocated some of the second quarter marketing spend to the third and fourth quarters because we are actually in the process of planning to rebrand the New Jersey site from SugarHouse to BetRivers soon,” Schwartz told analysts during the Q&A session of the August 4 call.
“So, that’s a little bit of an explanation as to why some of the Q2 marketing got allocated to later in the year.”
SugarHouse Brand Will Only Be Available in CT and PA
Once the rebrand takes effect, SugarHouse will only be available in two states — Connecticut and Pennsylvania.
RSI decided to use its SugarHouse brand — not BetRivers — for retail and online sports betting in Connecticut, where the operator launched at the end of September 2021. It offers sports betting through a partnership with the Connecticut Lottery Corporation (CLC).
Connecticut’s gaming law allows the CLC to set up 15 retail sports betting kiosks in the state, but they must be located at least 25 miles away from a tribal casino.
Scott-Rogers said there were no plans to rebrand SugarHouse as BetRivers in Connecticut.
“We are aligning our brand to BetRivers everywhere except for Connecticut,” Scott-Rogers told New Jersey Gaming Review on Thursday.
“We are rebranding to BetRivers, and the domain name will be nj.betrivers.com. The only place that will remain playsugarhouse.com after that is in Connecticut, and there are no plans to rebrand there.”
— and the fact that SugarHouse Casino PA and SugarHouse Sportsbook PA are still live — “we don’t market it, and affiliates aren’t allowed to promote it. Our site in Pennsylvania is pa.betrivers.com.
Rush Street Gaming, a sister company to RSI, announced in June 2019 that it would rebrand its SugarHouse Casino in Philadelphia as Rivers Casino Philadelphia. The rebrand was officially completed in October 2019.
The SugarHouse name derives from the Pennsylvania Sugar Refining Company, which began building a large sugar refinery complex in the Fishtown neighborhood of Philadelphia in 1881. The refinery was eventually dubbed the “Sugar House.”
The refinery closed in 1984. Rivers Casino Philadelphia sits on the former site of the facility.
Note: This story has been updated to reflect that the rebrand would be delayed beyond August 15.
