Arizona witnessed its first ever month-over-month decline in sports betting despite the Super Bowl aiding its sportsbooks to generate almost $500m in wagers in February.
According to PlayAZ, which tracks Arizona’s sports betting market, the downtick is said to be “typical” among legal US sports betting markets during the shortest month of the year with just one football game – the Super Bowl.
Eric Ramsey, Analyst for the PlayUSA.com Network, which includes PlayAZ.com, stated: “Arizona is following a similar pattern to more mature markets. As big a single event as the Super Bowl is, it can’t match a month like January that had five full weekends of football games.
“US sports betting has predictable seasonal ebbs and flows that generally follow the football season, with a one-month exception in March because of the NCAA Tournament.”
During February, bettors placed $491.7m in wagers into Arizona’s online and retail sportsbooks, a 13 per cent drop from January’s record breaking month, where $563.7m in wagers was collected, according to official data released by the Arizona Department of Gaming.
Moreover, bettors placed an average of $17.6m in wagers per day over the 28 days of February, down from $18.2m per day in January. Still, February’s handle marked the third-highest monthly volume since Arizona sports betting launched in September.
Sportsbooks won $25.6m in gross revenue from March’s bets, down 39 per cent from $41.9m in January. With $17.6m in promotional deductions, the state taxed $6.9m in adjusted receipts. That yielded $670,686 in privilege fees for the state.
Breaking down the revenue per operator, FanDuel led the way in February, generating $142.4m in online wagers and $149.8m in total. DraftKings was in second place, generating $131.7m in wagers, 100 per cent of which were made online. BetMGM took $99.8m, all online, generating $8.8m in gross revenue and Caesars handled $79m in wagers, $78.4m online, and took $2.5m in gross revenue.
However, despite the month-on-month decline, during the first six months of sports betting Arizona’s sportsbooks have produced $2.8bn in online and retail wagers, $228.6m in gross revenue, and $8.6m in privilege fees for the state.
“The first six months have been pretty extraordinary. If it wasn’t for New York, Arizona would be off to the fastest start in US sports betting history,” noted C.J. Pierre, Lead Analyst for PlayAZ.com. “As the industry begins its seasonal dip, which typically begins in April, operators can take heart in knowing that the market has taken a giant leap forward.”
