DraftKings goes Live! with its first gaming and dining establishment

Live! Hospitality & Entertainment, the company that’s brought 100,000 sq. ft. casinos to malls, is now bringing an online sports gaming brand into a mall with a 10,000-sq.-ft. bar and restaurant.

This fall, Live! and DraftKings will debut Sports & Social DraftKings,  at Somerset Collection, a 1,450,000-sq.-ft. mall in Troy, Mich., anchored by Nordstrom and Neiman Marcus whose luxury level sports Louis Vuitton, Dior, Tiffany, and Jimmy Choo.

What appears to be a standard sports bar will be activated by mobile DraftKings platforms which patrons may use to make wagers on the football, basketball, golf, or soccer games they’re viewing on Sports & Social Draft King’s 32-foot LED media wall.

Live!-- a unit of The Cordish Companies that is also behind Bally Sports Live! in St. Louis’s Ballpark Village and Live! at The Battery across from the Brave’s home park in Atlanta—promises upscaled dining and drinking at DraftKing’s first restaurant. Made-from-scratch gameday specials will be whipped up in the kitchen, says Live!, to be washed down with a wide selection of beers and specialty cocktails.

It was Live!, in association with the Professional Bull Riders Association, that introduced 10 PBR Cowboy Bars over the past year.

“We are creating a new standard for dining and sports entertainment with Sports & Social DraftKings that is unmatched,”claimed Cordish CEO Reed Cordish,  who also serves as CEO of Live! Hospitality & Entertainment.

Live music--something not often seen in a sports bar—will be part of that standard, as will al fresco dining on an outdoor patio that welcomes dogs.

Live! and DraftKings reported that the Somerset Collection Sports & Social DraftKings as the first of many to come. No new locations were announced, though they will most likely first appear in the 18 states where the gaming company is allowed to do business. Those include Arizona, Connecticut, Colorado, Illinois, and Indiana.