If October proved anything it was that online gambling and sports betting have experienced limited downsides to date. Credit the convenience factor, for one. Also credit the coronavirus pandemic which left retail sportsbooks and casinos shuttered and then open in only limited capacity.
When it comes to iGaming, revenue for October in New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, and West Virginia added up to $155.5 million, an increase of 5.3 percent over September’s total of $147.3 million.
New Jersey online gambling revenue established a new record with $93.5 million, a 6.1 percent increase over the previous record set in August. October’s revenue more than doubled the results of October 2019.
But online poker fell to $2.5 million, down 4 percent from September and 16.6 percent from August.
Golden Nugget’s online casino held the top spot again with $28.1 million, according to PlayNJ. Yet its market share fell from a high of 36 percent in July to 29.7 percent in October as competition increased. The property’s various online casinos have reported a minimum of $26 million in monthly revenue since April with four brands: Golden Nugget, Betfair NJ, SugarHouse, and BetAmerica.
Borgata and Resorts Digital each crossed the $20 million mark for October. The former, led by BetMGM and Borgata brands, reported $22 million for the month, good for second place. Resorts Digital, led by DraftKings Casino, finished a competitive third with $21.6 million. The next closest was Caesars Interactive with $8.2 million.
New Jersey collected $14 million in online-gaming taxes, up nearly 6 percent from September.
New Jersey’s online casino industry numbers year to date comes to $779 million, a 102.8 percent year-over-year increase.
iGaming revenue in Pennsylvania set a record for the third month in row, taking in $59.8 million, an increase of 4.7 percent over September. And September rose 2 percent from the August record. Revenue from online slots totaled $40.3 million, table games $17 million, and online poker $2.4 million, according to CDC Gaming Reports.
Rivers Casino Philadelphia ranked first, posting $16.6 million for the month, of which $14.1 million came from slots. Penn National, through DraftKings, led table game revenue with $6 million.
Delaware produced $643,714 in iGaming revenues for October, a decrease of 23.4 percent from September and the lowest total since March of this year. Online video lottery (slot) games pulled in $450,428, while table games generated a bit more than $150,000.
West Virginia saw a decline in online gaming revenues of 16 percent to $1.6 million in October, its third full month in the market.
Of the seven legal sports wagering states that have released October handle and revenue figures so far, six of them saw increases over September. While September’s U.S. record breaking handle of $2.86 billion benefited by a confluence of games from all four major team sports, October saw few games from Major League Baseball, just five NBA games and no NHL games. But the NFL and college games were in full force so expect October tallies to be over $3 billion.
New Jersey’s nine casinos, two racetracks and mobile online options topped out at U.S. record of $803.1 million in handle, well ahead of Pennsylvania, which came in second at $525.8 million. It was the second consecutive month in which New Jersey set a new record. New Jersey’s gigantic handle figure led to a total of $58.6 million in sports betting revenue for New Jersey operators in October, according to NJ Online Gambling.
New York could only look at its neighbor with envy. The four upstate casinos with sports betting generated just $2.6 million. For the year, New Jersey’s casinos, racetracks, and their online sports betting app partners have raked in $281.6 million in revenue while their New York counterparts have totaled a mere $6.2 million.
In New Jersey, sportsbooks paid $35.5 million in taxes for the first 10 months of this year. New York estimates that less than $1 million went to taxes.
The difference owes to a lack of mobile sports betting in New York and to a much lesser extent, to a lack of retail casinos close to New York City.
Some 91 percent of all sports wagers in New Jersey in 2020 were done online. Much of New Jersey’s windfall comes from New Yorkers who cross the borders to place mobile bets. A total of $836 million was estimated to have been wagered by New Yorkers in New Jersey in 2019 at brick-and-mortar sites as well as online. The result was $6.3 million in foregone tax revenue for New York.
Sports betting handle in Pennsylvania hit $525.8 million in October, setting a new state record. That’s up 13.6 percent from the previous record of $462.8 million set in September, according to Legal Sports Report.
Sports betting revenue also hit a record $47.8 million, according to a state report, with $13.2 million in tax revenue. Even when stripping out the $11.1 million in promo credits granted in October, the taxable revenue is still higher than the previous revenue record of $31.6 million from January 2020.
Mobile handle share grew to 89.8 percent.
The $11.1 million in promo credits is 26.6 percent of total online revenue in October, down from 91.3 percent in September. But promo spend didn’t drop significantly. Revenue jumped a lot. Operators spent $12 million on promo credits in September.
Sportsbooks spend to pick up new customers during the NFL betting season and keep existing customers from jumping ship to new competition, like Barstool Sportsbook.
The newest online player, Barstool Sportsbook, took $63.8 million in bets during its first full month of operations in October. That ranks as fourth-best. FanDuel Sportsbook maintained its lead in the state with $184.9 million in handle. DraftKings Sportsbook was second with $123.4 million. BetRivers‘two licenses with Rivers Philadelphia and Rivers Pittsburgh combined for $68.6 million. Parx Sportsbook with $29.9 million and Fox Bet with $29 million finished fifth and sixth.
With just seven states, national handle is already up about $160 million over September. If other states prove stagnant in October, national handle could exceed $3.02 billion. But Colorado and Illinois will hardly show stagnant results. Both states are generating huge handles since they launched earlier this year.
Illinois sports betting began in early March, but hit a brick wall when the coronavirus pandemic shut down sports and casinos later that month. But in September, the third full month of live wagering, the state recorded a handle of $285 million, eclipsing the $208 bet in Indiana in the same month. Monthly handles rose from $53 million in July to $140 million in August.
Industry analysts said the handle speaks to the potential in a state with a rich tapestry of sports and sports enthusiasts. Some say the wagers could produce annual handles of $5 billion, in Nevada territory, according to the Chicago Sun-Times.
Credit for much of the handle increase also goes to mobile betting, which accounted for 92 percent of the wagers in September. The state had $6.8 million in adjusted gross sports betting revenue, good for 2.2 percent hold.
Of the seven casinos and one horse racing track, Rivers in Des Plaines led the way with $105 million in wagers, though its lead was not as steep, according to Legal Sports Report.
DraftKings at Casino Queen in downstate East St. Louis handled about $92 million, while the Par-A-Dice Casino in East Peoria took about $75 million in bets through FanDuel.
September generated about $1 million in state tax revenue with another $82,000 going to Cook County government. The industry could bring in $100 million to state coffers each year.
Baseball so far has drawn the most interest from Illinois bettors (3.2 million bets totaling $133 million from June through September), though football will surely soon overtake it (2.7 million bets totaling $92 million).
