CLEVELAND — If you ask Winking Lizard Tavern vice president Fred Kobzowicz about his betting kiosks, he will direct you to the lottery games.

“I’m gonna play one draw, five bucks,” Kobzowicz said while playing one game. 

He said these are the most attractive betting kiosks at their locations. The Winking Lizard added sports betting kiosks once it became legal a year ago, but they didn’t get enough use from customers. So Kobzowicz said they’re getting rid of them. He said people prefer to bet on sports on their phones.

“Once they found out how easy it was for them to do it on their phone, they just stayed with it,” Kobzowicz said. 

He said even decades-old arcade games in the back made more money than sports betting. Their investment didn’t pay off.

“I thought they might be a little better,” Kobzowicz said. “Just because of the fact that if you win, you can get your cash. But it hasn’t been the case for us.”

But at the Jack Casino, their sports book and app added an entirely new department. The Jack even earned national recognition as one of the top sports betting brands in the country. 

Data from the Ohio Casino Control Commission shows the Jack’s downtown Cleveland casino raked in almost $3.6 million in online sports betting, and $2.7 million in in-person betting at their sports book, as of the most recently available data from Nov. 2023. 
Vice president Adam Suliman said it made more sense to build an in-house sports book with the app, since they’re in the betting business.

“This property, particularly in downtown Cleveland, is right in the heart of the sports and entertainment district,” Suliman said. “So we get five million people coming through our doors every single year. A lot of these folks are down here for games, so it just makes a ton of sense for us to build a world-class sports book and offer that for our customers.”

Jack’s in-person sports book was a much larger investment than just adding a kiosk. They figured it would pay off.

“We always just got back to the philosophy of create a great atmosphere for the customer and the rest will work itself out,” Suliman said. 

At the Winking Lizard, they’ll likely keep their brand as a good place to watch the game, but betting on it can be done on your phone.

“We’re primarily a food and beverage place as opposed to a gambling house,” Kobzowicz said.