Pennsylvania’s first month in online sports betting has already made a difference.
June is traditionally one of the slowest sports betting months in the USA. That’s mainly because it is without its two biggest draw cards, NFL football, and NBA basketball.
Yet Pennsylvania had its best month ever in June with its total number of sports bets taken reaching $46.3 million.
As opposed to New Jersey’s over 80%, only 40% of that total ($19.3 million) was garnered online – this mostly via smartphones. However, a comparison between the two states at this moment in time is pretty meaningless.
Fifteen sportsbooks were going full blast in New Jersey in June where sports betting has been legal for over a year. Against this in Pennsylvania, only one, Play SugarHouse, took bets all month.
BetRivers and Parx Casino had only been operational for a week each and FanDuel a few days of its test run.
SugarHouse responsible for 95% of PA wagers in June
SugarHouse, meantime, was responsible for 95% of all wagers taken ($18,170,689) – and for most of the month that was on android phones only. SugarHouse only managed to make its iOS betting app for iPhones available towards the end of the month.
In total bets taken, both online and in-person at Casinos, SugarHouses’ total wagers equaled $1,310,926 as against BetRivers $81,122 and Parx $46,645
For a better comparison between NJ and PA, we should go back to August 2018. That’s when the Garden State had its first full month of online betting. Ironically, it too had only one sportsbook (DraftKings) operating online at that time.
DraftKings, like FanDuel, was already an established sports fantasy giant with millions of nationwide users. Yet even with this advantage, its online bets in NJ that month only amounted to 23% of its total take.
Today that figure is up to between 75 and 80% each month. Can we assume then that online betting in Pennsylvania will soar as dramatically as it has in New Jersey?
In its first full year of online wagering will it be able to match or better New Jersey the $3.2 billion?
When its 12.8 million residents become fully aware of the ease and convenience of making wagers on their mobile phones, it’s betting handle will soar, to be sure.
New Jersey has 9.2 million residents, Nevada just 3.2
New Jersey has some 9.2 million residents and Nevada just 3.2 million. Some sports betting experts claim it’s the main reasons why NJ has so quickly reeled-in and surpassed Nevada.
And this in spite of the fact that the sports betting industry has been alive and well In Nevada for many years. It never was prohibited there as it was in most other states, New Jersey among them.
So will Pennsylvania, with 4 million more people than the Garden State, follow suit? Don’t forget major betting handle generator FanDuel has followed SugarHouse into Pennsylvania and DraftKings is also on the way in?
Between them, the latter two sports fantasy giants have captured nearly 50% of NJ’s betting handle in the past year.
But it is not a simple as that. There are other factors at play. New Jersey already has 15 online sportsbooks – and, with their competitive tax rates, more are coming soon. Bet365 is one of them, theScore another.
New Jersey has four with some to come, but their higher tax rate won’t be an incentive. They are not likely to match New Jersey for sportsbook numbers for some time to come.
Nor do they have a giant city like New York (8.6 million) on their doorstep. New York State (19+ million) now has four upstate Casinos offering sports getting, but no online betting. Consequently, thousands of New Yorkers are streaming across the Hudson River weekly to make bets on their phones.
They have to do it that way because of the wire act. Legal bets can only be placed with sportsbooks within the same state lines.