The excitement over the spread of sports betting in the U.S. is now more than a year old and shows little sign of diminishing.
One reason is the rapid clip at which states are legalizing sports betting. In an industry that is looking increasingly mature, sports betting is giving gaming a new revenue stream. And as it becomes the wedge to legalize online gambling, the potential becomes significant.
Look at two states that recently announced August gaming revenues.
In Pennsylvania, online sports betting generated $6.313 million in revenue, nearly double retail’s $3.575 million, even though only four operators are online so far compared to nine running retail books.
The two top revenue generators were Boyd’s Valley Forge Casino in suburban Philadelphia and Rush Street’s SugarHouse in the city. Boyd’s online operation generated $2.942 million compared to its retail operations at $175,330. SugarHouse online did triple its retail operations, $2.540 million vs. $816,000.
Sports betting combined generated $9.888 million in revenue on $109.038 million in handle. That’s just 3.4 percent of the state’s total gaming revenue of $295.762 million, but the growth outlook is impressive given that not all operations are open. Online sports betting, for example, tripled from July.
New Jersey shows another route to growth—online casino games.
After a notoriously slow start several years ago, online gaming in New Jersey has been steadily growing at a high rate.
In July, online gaming jumped 65.7 percent to $41.102 million and sports betting leaped 175 percent to $25.21 million as more books are operating this year.
Another way to look at it is that July’s numbers annualize to around $800 million for iGaming and sports betting, and that is while sports betting is in its infancy and before the busy sports betting seasons began with football and basketball in action.
Even as a nascent industry, July gave a big push to gaming revenues. New Jersey was up 16.08 percent with the new forms of gaming, 6.13 percent without it. Pennsylvania’s total gaming revenues rose 7.55 percent but just 2.7 percent factoring out the new revenue streams.
Those figures will be much higher when all sportsbooks are open, mobile sports betting becomes common, and online casino games are allowed.
Native America Goes Commercial
The announcement that Mohegan Gaming will manage Virgin Hotel’s casino in the former Hard Rock Casino in Las Vegas is the latest example of Indian tribes entering commercial gaming in a big way.
It follows the Poarch Creek of Alabama buying Sands Bethlehem in Pennsylvania and the Quapaw Nation of Oklahoma winning a casino license in Arkansas.
And those followed the Poarch Creek entering Florida with small operations and Mohegan operating a casino in Oregon, managing 10 percent-owned Resorts in Atlantic City and owning Mohegan Sun Pocono in Pennsylvania.
Nor will these operations be the last. The Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma, for example, is a candidate for another of Arkansas’ four casino licenses.
One question is what Seminole Tribe of Florida will do with Hard Rock International, the biggest tribal gaming operation of all. With the franchised Hard Rock in Las Vegas now gone to Virgin Hotels, Hard Rock International is free to enter the country’s biggest gaming market.
The bet here is that Hard Rock International will plant a casino flag along the Las Vegas Strip in a majorly owned property. It might take a while, but it seems inevitable.
