NY Sportsbooks See Increases In Handle

NY Sportsbooks See Increases In Handle

Published Date · Sept. 26, 2022 · Last Updated · Jan. 18, 2023 ·Read Time · 3 mins

The rise of New York sportsbook sports betting handles are ready for a surge. With the start of the National Football League (NFL) season, the sports betting handle will well surpass the $1 billion mark for the month of September. This past month of August, the New York sports betting handle was just under the $1 billion mark for the second month in a row. Specifically, the New York based sportsbooks saw $872.2 million in handle in online sports betting for August. In July, the handle was even less at $800.8 million. For context, the first six months that New York launched online sportsbooks, their handle went beyond $1 billion in each of the months. Only in recent months did the Empire State start to see a decline in handle.

First Full NFL Season In New York

This NFL season will signal the first entire professional football season that the state of New York will see with legal sports betting online. The opening game, especially because a New York-based team is playing in it, will be a large indicator of how much a full season of the NFL will pay off in the state. The total volume for geolocation in New York for the opening game of the Buffalo Bills beating the defending Super Bowl champion Los Angeles Rams was a large 3.7 million. According to GeoComply, the geolocation total volumes were up in the Buffalo area by 210% from September 1 to the opening Thursday of the NFL season. The Buffalo geos went from 86,400 to 267,000. 

For the last week of the 2021 regular season of the NFL, the state of New York launched its legal online sportsbooks. The first two months of having legal online sports betting saw massive handle numbers, with $1.67 billion for the month of January and $1.53 billion for the month of February. Marketing spend has seen a sharp decrease in a year-over-year comparison for most online sportsbook operators, not just in the state of New York but nationwide. New user promotions have also seen slight decreases for most operators. 

With that being said, the online sports betting handle is expected to exceed $1 billion quite easily. PlayUSA is projecting the state of New York to surpass $2 billion monthly handle in October, the peak of the NFL season. This would put New York on pace for over $18 billion in handle for the year. 

Potential State Tax Breaks For Operators

With the projections and NFL season coming up, it may make the argument for online sportsbook operators to need a tax break a difficult one to the state of New York. They will have to try, however, as the current 51% New York state tax rate makes the long-term plans of the online sportsbooks a difficult proposition to sustain. Once next year’s state session of legislation begins, lobbying and legislative procedures will more than likely begin to try and reduce the tax rate based on specific operator expansion figures.  

By early September, the total of New York online sportsbooks combined for $10.4 billion in handle. From this, operators netted $793.9 million in revenue and $404.9 million in tax revenue. The top operator in the state, FanDuel Sportsbook, stands alone on the list of operators in the state, controlling 43% share of the total handle ($374.6 million) and 47% share of the revenue ($46.6 million) in the month of August alone. For reference, DraftKings Sportsbook was second in both metrics. They controlled 28% of the share of the handle and 26% share of the revenue. 

Caesars Sportsbook came in third with a revenue of $12.7 million and a handle of $117.6 million. Behind Caesars was BetMGM with $8.8 million in revenue and a handle of $73 million followed by PointsBet who had a revenue of $2.5 million and a handle of $23.8 million. This was the first full month for BallyBet in the state of New York as they launched in the middle of July to become the ninth operator to have an online gambling license in the state. They had $97,502 in revenue with a $1 million handle. 

Author

Ian Dincuff

US Content Writer