New York Bags $1.5B in February amid Temporary Betting Lull

After the initial sports betting bonanza, the New York sports betting market cooled off a little in February, posting slightly lower results according to analysts from PlayNY.com, a Catena Media property. Never mind the drop in the sports betting handle, the Empire State still ended up with the second-highest total on record in the United States since the sports betting activity was first legalized in 2018.

Online Wagering Is King in New York

This February brought a total of $1.5 billion in online wagers through interactive betting platforms licensed in the state. However, this amount was 12% lower than the $1.7 billion total sports betting wagers clocked in January 2022. January was much shorter in terms of available betting events with the market opening on January 8.

Such market correction is normal, though. Online sportsbooks said that they had been taking around $54.6 million a day throughout February compared to $69.6 million for the 24 months of betting in January. Sportsbooks in February though were faced with a new challenge as sports bettors become much savvier, too.

Sportsbooks reported wins of $82.4 million compared to $124.1 million in January. These numbers apply to the businesses’ gross revenue. PlayNY analyst Mike Mazzeo was optimistic about the slowdown and argued that many of the sports bets were placed ahead of schedule on the Super Bowl. The “lull” in February is not very likely to last in March as March Madness, NCAA’s Men’s Basketball Tournament, has got underway.

In terms of who the biggest winners of last month’s betting bonanza were, FanDuel came on top with $568.1 million collected bets. The company generated a total of $23.2 million in gross revenue. DraftKings was a far second with $387.6 million in total bets collected.

DraftKings Still Leads the Way, Appealing to the Mass Bettor

However, the company once again managed to outpace FanDuel in terms of gross revenue, with $30 million, echoing the words of DraftKings CEO Jason Robins that the operator is primarily focused on “recreational gamblers” over all others.  

DraftKings is set to retain its strong performance given that the company has already made plans to run extensive coverage of the March Madness season, too. Meanwhile, Caesars was the third top-grossing sportsbook in the Empire State with the company generating $323.4 million in total wagers and managing $19.8 million in gross revenue.

Never mind the slow drop inactivity, the two months of sports betting activity in the state generated $3.2 billion in total wagers, breaking all records anywhere in the United States. Meanwhile, the state plans to reduce the tax rate on mobile operators in order to make them more competitive which should hopefully lead to more tax revenue for the Empire State.

New York is not shying away from other forms of gambling as well, even suggesting that it may turn to online casinos through a newly-proposed bill.