Item 1. Business
ITEM 1. BUSINESS
Bally’s Corporation, a Delaware corporation, with global headquarters in Providence, Rhode Island, is referred to as the “Company,” “Bally’s,” “we,” “our” or “us.” Our common stock is traded on the New York Stock Exchange (the “NYSE”) under the symbol “BALY.”
Our Company
We are a global gaming, hospitality and entertainment company with a portfolio of casinos and resorts and online gaming businesses. We provide our customers with physical and interactive entertainment and gaming experiences, including traditional casino offerings, iCasino, online bingo games, sportsbook, daily fantasy sports (“DFS”) and free-to-play games (“F2P”).
As of December 31, 2021, we own and manage 14 land-based casinos and one horse racetrack in ten states across the United States (“US”) operating under Bally’s brand. Our land-based casino operations include approximately 14,900 slot machines, 500 table games and 3,900 hotel rooms, along with various restaurants, entertainment venues and other amenities. Certain of our properties are leased under a master lease agreement with Gaming and Leisure Properties, Inc. (“GLPI”), a publicly traded gaming-focused real estate investment trust (“REIT”). With our acquisition of London-based Gamesys Group, Plc. (“Gamesys”) on October 1, 2021, we expanded our geographical and product footprints to include an iGaming business with well-known brands providing iCasino and online bingo experiences to our global online customer base with concentrations in Europe and Asia and a growing presence in North America. Our iCasino and online bingo platforms and games content, sportsbook and F2P games are provided on a business-to-business (“B2B”) as well as a business-to-consumer (“B2C”) basis. Our revenues are primarily generated by these gaming and entertainment offerings. We own and operate our proprietary software and technology stack designed to allow us to provide consumers differentiated offerings and exclusive content.
Our Strategy and Business Developments
We seek to continue to grow our business by actively pursuing the acquisition and development of new gaming opportunities and reinvesting in our existing operations. We believe that interactive gaming represents a significant strategic opportunity for the future growth of Bally’s. We seek to increase revenues at our casinos and resorts through enhancing the guest experience by providing popular games, restaurants, hotel accommodations, entertainment and other amenities in attractive surroundings with high-quality guest service. We believe that our recent acquisitions have expanded and diversified us from financial and market exposure perspectives, while continuing to mitigate our susceptibility to regional economic downturns, idiosyncratic regulatory changes and increases in regional competition.
In late 2020, we changed our name to Bally’s Corporation. We believe that the “Bally’s” trade name brand has a rich history of gaming, hospitality and entertainment providing immediate and enhanced nationwide brand recognition.
In 2021, we took significant steps forward in our strategy. We acquired multiple casino and resort properties, including Bally’s Lake Tahoe, Bally’s Evansville and Bally’s Quad Cities, each as defined below. We also agreed to purchase Tropicana Las Vegas Hotel and Casino (“Tropicana Las Vegas”) in Las Vegas, Nevada and announced plans to construct a land-based casino in Centre County, Pennsylvania, adding to our land-based casino presence. With the pending acquisition of Tropicana Las Vegas and the completion of construction in Centre County, Pennsylvania, we will own and manage 16 land-based casinos across 11 states.
In addition, we also expanded our interactive business by:
• launching our Bally Sports Network through our partnership with Sinclair Broadcast Group (“Sinclair”), which combines our sports betting technology with Sinclair’s expansive footprint. With Bally’s brand, the media partnership and the unencumbered skins (gaming licenses) that we have acquired and reserved in our portfolio, we can now provide our customers omni-channel gaming and entertainment across our various physical properties while having a singular online and mobile presence with a brand that is synonymous with gaming, hospitality and entertainment;
• acquiring Gamesys, a leading international online gaming operator that provides gaming entertainment to a global customer base; and
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• acquiring Bally’s Interactive, formerly Bet.Works, and its proprietary technology stack and turnkey solutions, which include marketing, operations, customer service, risk management and compliance. We believe that the Bet.Works acquisition provides us with a suite of advanced omni-channel products, platforms, software and content solutions positioning us to deliver competitive sports betting and iCasino offerings to customers on a national scale. These steps positioned us to become a leading, full-service, vertically integrated sports betting and iGaming company in the US with physical casinos and online gaming solutions united under a single, leading brand.
For further information on our recent and pending acquisitions and our partnership with Sinclair, refer to Note 5 “ Acquisitions ” and Note 10 “ Sinclair Agreement ” to our consolidated financial statements presented in Part II, Item 8.
Our Operating Structure
Our business is organized into three reportable segments: (i) Casinos & Resorts, (ii) North America Interactive, and (iii) International Interactive.
Casinos & Resorts - includes our 14 land-based casino properties and one horse racetrack:
Property Name Location
Bally’s Twin River Lincoln Casino Resort (“Bally’s Twin River”) Lincoln, Rhode Island
Bally’s Tiverton Casino & Hotel (“Bally’s Tiverton”) Tiverton, Rhode Island
Bally’s Dover Casino Resort (“Bally’s Dover”)
Dover, Delaware
Bally’s Atlantic City Casino Resort (“Bally’s Atlantic City”) Atlantic City, New Jersey
Bally’s Evansville Casino & Hotel (“Bally’s Evansville”)
Evansville, Indiana
Hard Rock Hotel & Casino Biloxi (“Hard Rock Biloxi”) Biloxi, Mississippi
Bally’s Vicksburg Casino (“Bally’s Vicksburg”) Vicksburg, Mississippi
Bally’s Kansas City Casino (“Bally’s Kansas City”) Kansas City, Missouri
Bally’s Black Hawk (3 properties)
Black Hawk, Colorado
Bally’s Shreveport Casino & Hotel (“Bally’s Shreveport”) Shreveport, Louisiana
Bally’s Lake Tahoe Casino Resort (“Bally’s Lake Tahoe”)
Lake Tahoe, Nevada
Bally’s Quad Cities Casino & Hotel (“Bally’s Quad Cities”)
Rock Island, Illinois
Bally’s Arapahoe Park Aurora, Colorado
North America Interactive - includes the following North America businesses:
• Bally’s Interactive, a business-to-business-to-consumer (“B2B2C”) sportsbook and iCasino platform provider and operator;
• Horses Mouth Limited (“SportCaller”), a B2B and F2P game provider for sports betting companies;
• Monkey Knife Fight (“MKF”), a B2C gaming platform and DFS operator;
• Joker Gaming, known as Live at the Bike, an online subscription streaming service featuring livestream and on-demand poker videos and podcasts;
• Association of Volleyball Professionals (“AVP”), a professional beach volleyball organization and host of the longest-running domestic beach volleyball tour;
• Telescope, Inc. (“Telescope”), a provider of real-time audience engagement solutions for live events, gamified second screen experiences and interactive livestreams; and
• Degree 53, a United Kingdom (“UK”)-based creative agency that specializes in multi-channel website and personalized mobile app and software development for online gambling and sports industries.
The North America Interactive reportable segment also includes the North American operations of Gamesys.
International Interactive - includes the following businesses in Europe and Asia:
• Gamesys, a B2B2C iCasino and online bingo platform provider and operator; and
• Solid Gaming, a games content aggregation business.
Refer to Note 19 “ Segment Reporting ” to our consolidated financial statements presented in Part II, Item 8 for additional information on our segment reporting structure.
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Our Brands
Bally’s Brand
Bally’s is an iconic brand. We performed extensive market research in which active gamers indicated an acute awareness of the brand, but not necessarily a high usage of brand products and gaming offerings. We have rebranded every casino and resort in our portfolio, except Hard Rock Biloxi, to re-energize this once great brand by building upon its deep legacy.
Additionally, our research told us that gamers across the demographic age spectrum knew of Bally’s brand and identified with the gaming entertainment aspect of slot machines, pinball machines, video machines and casinos. We believe in the industrial logic and vision of Bally’s becoming a premier, truly integrated, omni-channel gaming company for both retail and online gamers. These insights form the key tenets of our new integrated Bally Rewards program specifically to enable customers to utilize compelling rewards universally in our interactive and casino and resort environments.
Our Sinclair media affiliation adds to our comprehensive touchpoint strategy, which strengthens our ability to attract new customers to our integrated brand by showcasing Bally’s with millions of daily impressions.
We believe that our phased approach to the transformation of Bally’s brand was thoughtful and deliberate. There are exceptions to our rebranding initiative. For example, in the case of Hard Rock Biloxi, we decided to maintain the current “Hard Rock” naming rights arrangement. Nonetheless, Bally’s remains at the center of our strategy.
In summary, we remain focused in our continuing effort to rebirth Bally’s brand as a legendary, integrated brand, leveraging our casino and resort, interactive and media environments with a compelling rewards program to rival our competition.
Interactive Brands
We operate a suite of award-winning brands and are focused on building a diverse portfolio of distinctive and recognizable brands on a B2B2C basis that deliver best-in-class platforms, player experiences and gaming content globally. Our brands are:
Business-to-Consumer Brands:
• F2P brand is Bally Play ;
• DFS brand is MKF ;
• Sportsbook brand is Bally Bet ;
• iCasino brands include Bally Casino , Rainbow Riches Casino, Virgin Casino, Virgin Games, Megaways Casino, VIP Casino, Vera & John, InterCasino , Monopoly Casino ; and
• Online bingo brands include Jackpotjoy, Double Bubble Bingo and Botemania .
Business-to-Business Brands:
• Bally’s Interactive , formally Bet.Works , a sportsbook and iCasino platform provider and operator;
• SportCaller , a F2P games content provider;
• Gamesys , an iCasino and online bingo platform provider and operator;
• Solid Gaming , a games content aggregation business; and
• Telescope , a provider of real-time audience engagement solutions for live events, gamified second screen experiences and interactive livestreams.
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Bally Sports Brand
Inherent in our naming rights arrangement with Sinclair, our Bally Sports brand encompasses a lineup of 19 regional sports networks to position the Bally Sports brand to be a well-known participant in the sports media industry, producing award-winning live game coverage, while creating and innovating multiplatform content that engages millions of sports fans across the US. We are home to America’s most comprehensive regional sports media rights portfolio that includes more than half of the US-based Major League Baseball, National Basketball Association and National Hockey League teams and delivers more than 4,500 live events annually.
We believe Bally Sports represents the future of sports fandom. We are seeking to cultivate and engage the next generation of fans by pursuing opportunities to create an omni-channel entertainment experience with sports at its core. By leveraging the collective scale of our regional sports media rights portfolio, we will seek to develop engaging content across an ever-expanding ecosystem of platforms and devices, meeting fans at the intersection of technology and sports culture. We believe that Bally Sports’ investment in the gamification of sports will usher in a new era of live, interactive sports that will provide fans the opportunity to interact with games in real time, on a personalized level, creating a national lean-in experience.
Our Technology and Product Development
The heart of Bally’s real-money gaming solutions is the union of the Gamesys platform with Bally’s casinos and resorts and iGaming products. The combined sports, casino and additional online marketing assets provide social gaming, game development and marketing partnerships that integrate with the casinos and resorts creating an exciting and diverse gaming, hospitality and entertainment environment. Our investment in gaming platforms along with our talented technical and product development teams allowed Bally’s to launch Bally Casino New Jersey within two months of the Gamesys acquisition. In 2022, we are planning a rapid expansion of iCasino and sportsbook platforms across the US and Canada with expanded omni-channel marketing features.
Our investment in core disciplines across technology, analytics and marketing have allowed us to rapidly bring innovative new experiences to market and provide unique insights into our customer habits and their interactions with both offline and online experiences. The result has been a highly efficient marketing conversion and retention platform that combines online and offline opportunities.
Our product offerings comprise varying levels of proprietary and third-party software. Our proprietary platform binds together our product offerings, providing account management, responsible gaming, regulatory compliance and electronic wallet capabilities. Across our product offerings, we have endeavored to own the technology in-house for all critical components and to utilize a combination of new technologies, including data science and machine learning, to optimize conversion, efficiency and efficacy.
Our experience from the highly competitive European markets, especially in the UK, allows us to leverage advanced artificial intelligence (“AI”), machine learning and retention capabilities across the online sports, casino and bingo product lines and to bring that expertise to our offline casinos and resorts. We have integrated the Bet.Works sports engine with the Gamesys casino platform to provide a seamless, high performance, efficient and effective online gaming platform that links our casinos and resorts activity with our iGaming products. Our continued investments into kiosk and player rewards recognize both online and offline activity and are at the forefront of our omni-channel strategy.
Bally’s core product offerings are built on integrated, proprietary account management technology. This technology provides users with access to their account history and a uniform identity verification system, which is critical in enabling navigation from our national audience to our iGaming and sportsbook products. Our internally developed machine learning and AI tools recommend games, rewards and payment options and payment amounts to best suit our player’s preferences. We use our AI and machine learning skills to also protect our players by working at the forefront of the industry in developing advanced systems to identify and manage problem gambling behaviors.
Our in-house B2B platform supports a wide range of game suppliers as well as hosting our own range of game content developed by our in-house studio.
We are further investing in the Bally technology and product platform to achieve our vision of a seamless player journey between offline and online gaming and entertainment worlds that recognize and reward players through their entire lifetime whether in our casinos and resorts or online in any of our gaming and entertainment offerings. By leveraging our casinos and resorts, Sinclair partnership and iGaming products and brands, we strive to deliver an entirely new omni-channel gaming and entertainment experience to our customers.
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We plan to invest in core disciplines across our technology, analytics and marketing platforms to bring new experiences to market and gain an understanding of our customers. We are focused on building a strong brand reputation to distinguish us from our competitors.
Marketing
The marketing efforts under Bally’s brand are primarily executed through six funnels: Advertising, Direct Marketing, Player Development, Special Events and Promotions, Entertainment and the Bally Rewards loyalty program.
Our Casino Operations team plays a significant role in attracting and retaining our customers. Every customer who interacts with a process, such as an automated teller machine (ATM) or kiosk, or an employee is met with an attempt to garner a return visit and then, in turn, make a recommendation to family and friends. Hence “R2,” an abbreviation for “Return and Recommend,” is Bally’s marketing and casino operations mantra.
The funnels are as follows:
Advertising
Bally’s targets its demographics throughout the nation via radio, television, billboards, print, direct mail, email, digital and social media campaigns. We seek to target the right customer at the right time with the right message to increase brand awareness and drive business. We do modest image advertising, but more predominantly lean towards strong call-to-action messaging.
Direct Marketing
We use Direct Marketing to establish a personal relationship with customers. This form of marketing typically involves an offer and a call to action to incentivize an initial or additional casino visit or engagement with our iGaming products. Our focus on individual behavior, rather than broad segments (which have been the traditional industry approach), is designed to allow us to execute a “Precision Marketing Model.” We believe that we understand the influential attributes that attract players and, as a result, we can market to the point of diminishing returns while avoiding low-return spending.
Player Development
Player Development is our link to our premium customers. We utilize a process under the Precision Marketing Model that is designed to enable our team to efficiently manage sales efforts to attract customers. We believe the potential exists to engage increasingly more with our customers as they move throughout our brands.
Special Events and Promotions
This category refers to the mass public promotions that are weaved into the marketing calendar in concert with Direct Marketing. Our casino marketing team seeks to leverage tried-and-true promotions that attract and entertain players in an effort to retain them for the long term.
Entertainment
The mission to attract and retain gamers is evident in our entertainment strategy. Bally’s headliner strategy is to entertain our customers while recovering the cost of the act through cash sales. Additional entertainment is offered at Bally’s lounges and bars and designed to support our branding mission which is based on offering an engaging and entertaining experience.
Bally Rewards
Bally Rewards is our core loyalty program and was devised to establish consistency throughout Bally’s brand. Players earn tier points to achieve a tier status of Pro, Star, Superstar and ultimately Legend. In development is the connectivity of this program by virtue of our “one card” linking systems universally at all casinos and resorts in addition to our interactive business units. We are also planning to provide benefits outside of what is offered in our casinos and resorts to add value to the membership.
Interactive Cross Marketing
We design collaborative, cross-marketing campaigns that include direct mail, on-property marketing and VIP marketing in an effort to increase interactive sign-ups and introduce interactive players to our casinos and resorts. This cross-marketing campaign is currently being launched at Bally’s Atlantic City.
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Competition
The gaming industry is characterized by a high degree of competition among a large number of operators, including land-based casinos, riverboat casinos, dockside casinos, video lotteries, traditional lotteries, video gaming terminals at taverns in certain states, sweepstakes and poker machines not located in casinos, Native American gaming, emerging varieties of iGaming and daily fantasy sports gaming, increased sports betting and other forms of gaming in the US. In a broader sense, our gaming operations face competition from many leisure and entertainment activities, including, for example: shopping, athletic events, television and movies, concerts and travel. Legalized gaming is currently permitted in various forms in different parts of the US, in several Canadian provinces and on many lands taken into trust for the benefit of certain Native Americans in the US and First Nations in Canada. We face significant competition in each of the jurisdictions in which we operate. Such competition may intensify in some of these jurisdictions if new gaming operations open in these markets or existing competitors expand their operations. Our properties compete directly with other gaming properties in each state in which we operate, as well as in adjacent states. In some instances, particularly with Native American casinos, our competitors pay substantially lower taxes or no taxes at all. We believe that increased legalized gaming in other states, particularly in areas close to our existing gaming properties and the development or expansion of Native American gaming in or near the states in which we operate, could create additional competition for us and could adversely affect our operations or future development projects. See “ Item 1A. Risk Factors ” for more information on competition.
Seasonality
Casino, hotel and racing operations in our markets are subject to seasonal variation. Seasonal weather conditions can frequently adversely affect transportation routes to each of our properties and may cause flooding and other effects that result in the closure of our properties. As a result, unfavorable seasonal conditions could have a material adverse effect on our operations.
Our sports betting business may experience seasonality based on the relative popularity of certain sports at different times of the year.
Human Capital Resources
Employee Relations, Diversity and Social Inclusion
A driving factor of our success is the recruitment and retention of employees who are committed to providing outstanding guest service, while providing a work environment that promotes diversity, inclusion and respect. To promote and foster a culture of inclusion, our properties have hiring initiatives that are aimed at increasing diversity and promoting gender equality and we welcome employees of all backgrounds. To further promote this initiative, we recently rolled out a “Walk in my Shoes” program, which allows our employees to work temporarily in another position to provide them with an increased perspective across the Company.
We believe that by providing our employees with competitive pay and benefits, as well as opportunities for professional development, we can achieve our goals of attracting and retaining a diverse and engaged workforce. Our professional development efforts include robust training programs, scholarships and tuition reimbursement opportunities. In addition, we recently implemented a Management Development Program, which is designed to allow us to identify and promote high performing talent within our workforce. We also provide our employees with a number of health and wellness programs, including an annual wellness fair, flu shot clinic and weight loss program, in addition to weekly wellness communications providing helpful information on health initiatives.
We also believe in the importance of giving back to our communities and have several philanthropic initiatives, including fundraising events to support local charities and organizations and community service events. We encourage our employees to participate in these events and recognize their efforts and contributions in their respective communities.
Labor Relations
As of December 31, 2021, we had approximately 9,460 employees. Most of our employees in Rhode Island and New Jersey are represented by a labor union and are subject to collective bargaining agreements with us. As of such date, we had 22 collective bargaining agreements covering approximately 2,364 employees. Our collective bargaining agreements generally have three-or-five-year terms.
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Environmental, Social and Corporate Governance
Our approach to sustainability is underpinned by three pillars: (i) player well-being, (ii) people engagement and (iii) building a brighter future.
Player well-being
• Achieved Gamecare Level 3 Accreditation, the highest accreditation available in the industry
• Work toward our global sustainability commitments
• Embed our responsible gaming program in everything we do
People Engagement
• Measure and maintain high engagement levels utilizing an engagement index target
• Evolve our ways of working, embracing flexible and agile hybrid working models suited to roles
• Proactively support our employees’ holistic well-being
• Continue to hire, nurture and develop a diverse and inclusive workforce
• Continue to invest in learning and development of our employees
• Ensure our culture and values underpin everything we do
Building a Brighter Future
• Work toward carbon neutral status
• Seek to reduce direct energy usage
• Support the United Nations Global Compact Standard
• Support our Bally Cares Initiatives
Government Gaming Regulation
General
The casino and iGaming industries are highly regulated and we must maintain licenses and pay gaming taxes in each jurisdiction in which we operate in order to continue operations. Each of our casino and iGaming businesses is subject to extensive regulation under the laws, rules and regulations of the jurisdiction in which it operates. These laws, rules and regulations generally concern the responsibility, financial stability, integrity and character of the owners, managers and persons with financial interests in the gaming operations. Violations of laws or regulations in one jurisdiction could result in disciplinary action in that and other jurisdictions.
Some jurisdictions, including those in which we are licensed, empower their regulators to investigate participation by licensees in gaming outside their jurisdiction and require access to periodic reports reflecting those gaming activities. Violations of laws in one jurisdiction could result in disciplinary action in other jurisdictions.
Under gaming laws in jurisdictions in which we have operations, and under our organizational documents, certain of our securities are subject to restrictions on ownership which may be imposed by specified governmental authorities. These restrictions may require a holder of our securities to dispose of the securities, or, if the holder refuses or is unable to dispose of the securities, we may be required to repurchase the securities.
For a more detailed description of regulations to which we are subject, see Exhibit 99.1 , to this Annual Report on Form 10-K, which is incorporated herein by reference.
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Our Regulatory Agreement
On February 17, 2022, certain of our subsidiaries, the Rhode Island Department of Business Regulation (“DBR”) and the Division of Lotteries (“DoL”) of the Rhode Island Department of Revenue amended and restated our Regulatory Agreement (the “Regulatory Agreement”). The amendment and restatement of the Regulatory Agreement was mandated by legislation enacted in Rhode Island in June 2021. The Regulatory Agreement contains financial and other covenants that, among other things, (1) restrict the acquisition of stock and other financial interests in us, (2) relate to the licensing and composition of members of our management and Board of Directors (the “Board”), (3) prohibit certain competitive activities and related-party transactions and (4) restrict our ability to declare or make restricted payments (including dividends), incur additional indebtedness or take certain other actions, if our leverage ratio exceeds 5.50 to 1.00 (in general being gross debt divided by Adjusted EBITDA, each as defined in the Regulatory Agreement).
The Regulatory Agreement also provides affirmative obligations, including setting a minimum number of employees that we must employ in Rhode Island and providing the DBR and DoL with periodic information updates about us. Among other things, the Regulatory Agreement prohibits us and our subsidiaries from owning, operating, managing or providing gaming specific goods and services to any properties in Rhode Island (other than Bally’s Twin River and Bally’s Tiverton), Massachusetts, Connecticut or New Hampshire. A failure to comply with the Regulatory Agreement could subject us to injunctive or monetary relief, payments to the Rhode Island regulatory agencies and ultimately the revocation or suspension of our licenses to operate in Rhode Island.
In addition, our master contracts with Rhode Island were extended through June 30, 2043, and allow for consolidation of promotional points between Bally’s Twin River and Bally’s Tiverton, obligate Bally’s Twin River to build a 50,000 square foot expansion, obligate Bally’s Twin River to lease at least 20,000 square feet of commercial space in Providence, and commit us to invest $100 million in Rhode Island over this extended term, including an expansion and the addition of new amenities at Bally’s Twin River. This June 2021 legislation also authorized a joint venture with International Gaming Technology PLC (“IGT”) to become a licensed technology provider and supply the State of Rhode Island with all Video Lottery Terminals (“VLTs”) at both Bally’s Twin River and Bally’s Tiverton for a 20.5-year period starting January 1, 2023. IGT will own 60% of the joint venture. As of July 1, 2021, until the joint venture is operating, we will supply 23% of all VLTs in return for 7% net terminal income from the machines.
Other Laws and Regulations
Our businesses are subject to various laws and regulations in addition to gaming regulations. These laws and regulations include restrictions and conditions concerning alcoholic beverages, food service, smoking, environmental matters, employees and employment practices, currency transactions, taxation, zoning and building codes and marketing and advertising. Such laws and regulations could change or could be interpreted differently in the future, or new laws and regulations could be enacted. Material changes to any of the laws, rules, regulations or ordinances to which we are subject, new laws or regulations or material differences in interpretations by courts or governmental authorities could adversely affect our operating results.
The sale of alcoholic beverages is subject to licensing, control and regulation by applicable local regulatory agencies. All licenses are revocable and are not transferable. The agencies involved have full power to limit, condition, suspend or revoke any license, and any disciplinary action could, and revocation would, have a material adverse effect upon our operations.
Intellectual Property
Our principal intellectual property consists of trademarks based on the Bally’s brand name, which we continue to deploy throughout our interactive and retail operations, including Bally Casino, Bally Bet, Bally Rewards, Bally Play and Bally Sports, among others. We also own a number of other trademarks related to our growing sports betting operations, including MKF, SportCaller and Telescope, among others. Intellectual property rights are substantial to our business, as they protect important assets and products of our interactive and retail operations. Our in-house departments develop and acquire various forms of intellectual property, including copyright, trademarks, patents and trade secrets.
As part of our acquisition of the Hard Rock Biloxi in July 2014, Hard Rock Biloxi entered into an amendment to the existing license agreement with Hard Rock Hotel, Licensing, Inc., which originally provided for an initial term of 20 years through September 2025 and the option to renew for two successive ten-year terms. Under the license agreement, we have the exclusive right to use the “Hard Rock” brand name in connection with, and as it relates to, the Hard Rock Biloxi property for an annual fee. We also secure licenses in relation to certain intellectual property owned by other third parties for the operation of our online gaming, sportsbook and daily fantasy sports offerings.
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We maintain and pursue registration of valuable proprietary trademarks used on our online platforms, as well as selected brands used in our retail front. Our trademark portfolio includes registrations in the US and jurisdictions outside the US in line with our global operations.
Our group creates original software code and designs for, among others, the needs of our gaming and betting operations, which are protected by copyright. We also own several US patents in relation for inventive elements of gaming software.
In addition, we actively monitor the use of our key brands in commerce and, where appropriate, we take enforcement actions to cease activities by third parties, that could cause market confusion or dilution of our brands. We also seek to maintain our trade secrets and confidential information via relevant non-disclosure agreements and confidentiality clauses.
Corporate Information
We were incorporated in Delaware on March 1, 2004. Our principal executive offices are located at 100 Westminster Street, Providence, Rhode Island 02903, and our telephone number is (401) 475-8474. Our website address is www.Ballys.com. The information that is contained in, or that is accessible through, our website is not part of this filing.
Available Information
We are required to file annual, quarterly and current reports, proxy statements and other information with the Securities and Exchange Commission (the “SEC”). These filings are also available on the SEC’s website at www.sec.gov. We also make our Annual Reports on Form 10-K, our Quarterly Reports on Form 10-Q, our Current Reports on Form 8-K and all amendments to these reports available free of charge through our corporate website as soon as reasonably practicable after such reports are filed with, or furnished to, the SEC. In addition, our Code of Business Conduct, Corporate Governance Guidelines and charters of the Audit Committee, the Compensation Committee, the Compliance Committee and the Nominating and Governance Committee are available on our website, www.Ballys.com. The information that is contained in, or that is accessed through, our website is not part of this filing.
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