The Takeaway: The Wild Ride Of Sports Betting Revenue In Nevada, NY, NJ, PA
Gambling roundup: DraftKings stock up after earnings call; Minnesota sports betting legalization hits a speed bump
We have Super Bowl figures from four of the biggest states for sports betting. Let’s take a look at them.
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New York
The most fascinating data set is NY. The state gaming commission dropped the numbers on Thursday, initially sending out incorrect numbers for FanDuel. But here are the corrected metrics:
A few things stand out here:
Sportsbooks across the board held about 32%, an extremely positive result even for a single event.
FanDuel held almost 40% and account for more than half of all revenue.
ESPN Bet, which is relatively new to the state, is almost a rounding error in the Super Bowl numbers. They were a distant sixth and by handle they were almost seventh.
While we heard a lot about “customer-friendly” results in Q4, these are about as customer-unfriendly as you can get. It will be interesting to learn why sportsbooks did extremely well here. As you’ll see, sportsbooks did well elsewhere as well, but nowhere near this level of success.
New Jersey
We only got some basic numbers in New Jersey (ie no operator-level data), but it was another good result for the sportsbooks.
Handle clocked in $168.7 million, which eclipsed the amount wagered in New York.
Revenue came in at $25.2 million, which ends up as a very good hold of almost 18%.
Handle was up 19% year-over-year.
Nevada
Nevada is a bit of an outlier in the US sports betting landscape, since behemoths FanDuel and DraftKings don’t operate online sportsbooks in the state.
Handle was $151.6 million, the lowest total since 2021. Wagering on the Big Game had hit $190 million a year ago.
Revenue was $22.1 million, for another stellar hold percentage — especially for Nevada — of 14.6%.
Pennsylvania
PA is the outlier of the group, with the Philadelphia Eagles’ win creating a bad result for the sportsbooks:
$101.5 million in handle is a state record for the Super Bowl and a 20.4% increase over 2023, when the Eagles also appeared in the Big Game.
Sportsbooks lost $6.5 million on the game.
A top-line look
That’s roughly $570 million wagers across four of the biggest states that have online sports betting.
We won’t get any insight in Florida, where Hard Rock Bet runs a monopoly for legal online sports betting.
What will be the norm for hold nationwide on the Super Bowl? South Jersey is an Eagles stronghold, so you could imagine hold being somewhere between New Jersey and New York at 20 to 30%. You could end up seeing a pretty good February for the sportsbooks on the heels of these results.
Gambling News Roundup
DraftKings’ Loss Widens but Stock Jumps on Upbeat Outlook (Barron’s): “DraftKings stock was rising even after the company missed fourth-quarter financial expectations. The online sports betting company reported a fourth-quarter loss of 28 cents a share on revenue of $1.39 billion.”
DK stock was up more than 5% in after-hours trading. It briefly touched $50, which hadn’t happened since 2021.
DK presser and results here.
DK was hurt by “customer-friendly” results, aka favorites winning in football more than usual.
NAAiG unites casino leaders to fight online casino expansion (SBC Americas): “A new coalition of gaming and entertainment business leaders have formed the National Association Against iGaming (NAAiG) in response to what the association describes as ‘escalating concerns over the significant health and economic risks of iGaming.’”
I do find it extremely funny that the study trying to push back on online gambling comes from an organization called “The Innovation Group.”
5 Alabamians plead guilty in sports betting money laundering scheme that cost IRS $20 million (AL.com): “According to the plea agreements, 53-year-old Birmingham resident Timothy J. Pughsley began operating a bookmaking organization at least 17 years ago that later became known as “Red44.” Red44’s bookmaking and betting activities occurred via an offshore server in Costa Rica. The operation, prosecutors said, accepted more than $2 billion in bets.”
Pretty relevant vis a vis the “cannibalization” debate above…it’s almost like there’s a lot of illegal online gambling going on already!
Minnesota betting bill stuck in mud despite tribal and track support (SBC Americas): “A Minnesota bill that would legalize online sports betting and fantasy contests stalled in committee on Thursday despite enjoying what its sponsor called an unprecedented level of support. Sen. Matt Klein‘s SB 757 received a split 6-6 vote from the Senate State and Local Government Committee with bipartisan opposition.”
Proposed bill would make it a crime to share a sports betting account with someone or place bets on their behalf (The Gazette): “The state’s law enforcement agency is asking legislators to clarify in state law that sharing sports gambling accounts with other bettors is illegal, and that state law enforcement officials have the authority to investigate those alleged crimes. A bill proposed by the Iowa Department of Public Safety was considered Wednesday during a legislative hearing at the Iowa Capitol.”
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