One of the sharpest shops for sports betting in the United States is beginning to roll out new technology to help broaden its wagering menu and keep pace with evolving consumer expectations.
Circa Sports debuted its new app this week in Iowa, and plans to bring it to additional states over the coming months.
- Circa Sports has begun rolling out its new in-house sports betting technology in Iowa, with plans to expand to Colorado, Missouri, and Illinois in the coming months.
- The upgrade allows for a broader betting menu and improved app features, but Circa remains committed to its sharp-focused model rather than adopting a fully recreational style.
- CEO Derek Stevens emphasized Circa’s refusal to offer ultra-specific or risky props, aiming instead for expanded but responsible betting options with high limits and transparency.
Next up will be Colorado in November, Circa CEO Derek Stevens told Covers on Tuesday at the Global Gaming Expo (G2E) in Las Vegas.
After that, Circa plans to have the new book ready and waiting for the Missouri sports betting launch on Dec. 1. Stevens and Co. are eyeing a launch in Illinois early next year as well.
Bon appétit
Circa’s new tech will be its own, and it will eventually give it the capability to give its sharper clientele more stuff to bet.
“For us, really … it’s the ability to take some cost down,” Stevens said. “It also allows us to increase our menu.”
However, if you think Circa Sports is suddenly about to become identical to more recreational-focused books, you would be sorely mistaken, according to its chief executive.
“We do not have a desire to have a menu nearly as big as maybe some others, but I do think that the consumer has changed in a manner that we clearly need to broaden our menu,” Stevens said.
The comments from the head of Vegas-based Circa, which is well-known and regarded for taking bigger bets from customers, show that even the sharpest of shops recognizes the need for squarer offerings at times.
NEW: FanDuel has secured Missouri online sports betting market access via a partnership with MLS' St. Louis CITY SC, per release; the deal was announced hours after regulators picked DraftKings and Circa for the two "untethered" licenses; FanDuel set to take bets beginning Dec. 1
— Ryan Butler (@ButlerBets) August 15, 2025
Online sports betting in the U.S. continues to evolve, including into the controversial realm of federally regulated prediction markets.
Those markets and their sports event contracts are quickly growing in the U.S., allowing users to make de facto sports bets in all 50 states, Nevada included, and despite the opposition of local regulators, Nevada’s included.
The exchanges are offering more and more rec bettor-focused products, and bettors are becoming more and more aware of prediction markets, too. On Monday night at the massive, brick-and-mortar Circa Sportsbook in Vegas, for instance, advertisements for Kalshi, a prediction market, were running during breaks in the games being shown on the giant screens.
Stevens is a skeptic.
“I just have a hard time believing that this loophole, this element of being shrewd, is going to wipe out 50 or 60 years of organized, responsible, developed sports wagering,” the Circa CEO told Covers.
While the court fights over the legality of sports event contracts offered by prediction markets are indeed ongoing, one edge that Stevens and Circa may have is their higher-limit, lower-hold, sharper model of bookmaking.
Peter Jackson, CEO of FanDuel-owner Flutter, says Kalshi's "combos" look "suspiciously like sports betting" to him.
— Geoff Zochodne (@GeoffZochodne) October 7, 2025
That model helped Circa to earn an "untethered" online sports betting license in Missouri, a differentiating factor compared to DraftKings (the other winner of an untethered license) and FanDuel (which lost out to Circa).
What in the world
The Circa model also means it could book the type of action that could already be bleeding to prediction markets from recreational sportsbooks.
At Kalshi, the only limits for sharper bettors are what someone else on the exchange is willing to match, which could make it a home for sharps who have been limited by rec books. At Circa, those sharps are already welcome.
“I just don't see a world where people are going to prefer [prediction markets to online sportsbooks], unless you're somebody that's maybe been limited and can't get action, but that's a different thing,” DraftKings CEO Jason Robins said Tuesday at G2E.
At any rate, “Version 1.0” of the new Circa app will not have the broadest menu, Stevens acknowledged, but it will continue to expand over the next few months. Even so, Circa’s version of broad won't exactly match that of other online sports betting sites in the U.S.
“I never want Circa Sports involved in props where we have to be so conservative that there’s going to be a $100 limit,” Stevens said.
The Circa CEO gave the example of booking free-throw props for the ninth player on the bench of a basketball team. That’s not going to happen at Circa, especially given integrity scandals that have popped up from time to time involving small-role players and microbetting markets.
“That’s not at all what I’m looking to do from the same-game parlay perspective or anything like that,” Stevens said. “There’s no bookmaker … that I respect from a bookmaking perspective that would book something like that. This was pure lunacy on behalf of bookmakers to offer something like that.”
Circa still wants to offer player props on the starting five or six for basketball, or the starting lineup for baseball, Stevens added. He’s just not planning to be in the business of very specific and potentially riskier betting markets.
Stand by for updates
Among the features touted for the new Circa app is that there will be “one wallet” for the states in which it’s live. For example, someone in Iowa could eventually have their Circa balance waiting for them to wager with if they travel to Colorado.
Other features include additional funding methods, better search functionality, and “dynamic and transparent betting limits.”
Stevens said there are a “handful of things” Circa wants to continue to update and upgrade on the app by the time it launches in Missouri.
“So I’m hoping that by Dec. 1, we’re already at like Version 3.0,” he said.
