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Could D.C. arena become go-to place for March Madness betting?

I have friends who make annual trips to Las Vegas for the first two rounds of March Madness. They sit in a sportsbook, make bets and watch the games. I’ve never been, but they all rave about the experience.

Monumental Sports’ Zach Leonsis believes Washington’s Capital One Arena could, eventually, become a similar go-to place for locals who can’t travel all the way to Vegas, especially after William Hill opens a sportsbook in the arena later this year.

I’ll let Leonsis explain: “We are busy practically 250 nights per year. But those nights take place between 6 p.m. and 11 p.m. We have offices in Capital One Arena. I go out to the concourse level in the middle of the day, and you can hear a pin drop. It’s a 20,000-person building that’s totally empty.

“Why can’t we think about opportunities to open up the building during the day for viewing parties? I can imagine a day when we have March Madness happening, and the sportsbook is packed and we open up the doors to the arena bowl. We open up, maybe, one of the end zones, and you have 2,000 people watching the March Madness games and renting out suites.

“People really like communal experiences. That’s really difficult to replace.”

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