The predictions were correct it seems. Just four weeks of finally legal mobile sports betting in New York has seen them rise to the top of the national sports betting table.
January 2022 saw mobile sports betting launched in the state. New York took a staggering $1.62 billion worth of sports bets. That figure sees them take over from New Jersey whose best monthly figure is $300 million less than that total.
That record month for New Jersey was in October of last year. That month saw them record figures of $1.3 billion. That was a busy time for American gamblers with the NFL and NBA seasons in full flow. Their January 22 figures will be revealed on February 16. The population of New Jersey is less than half that of New York, so it’s not too surprising they are already lagging behind.
It’s a big achievement considering the big mobile sportsbook launch didn’t take place until January 9. The $1.62 billion figure is from January 9 to the week ending January 30. Not all the sportsbooks opened on that date, and more are on the way. Could they get through the $2 billion mark soon?
WynnBet Launch in New York
That may well happen because February will see the nation betting on the Super Bowl, the NHL All-Star game, and the Winter Olympics. Friday February 4 saw WynnBet launch their sportsbook in New York. That’s despite the rumours of the company looking to offload their sports betting operations.
It took a fair while for New York to legalize mobile sports betting. There had been opposition in the past with former Governor Andrew Cuomo a major opponent. Then the worsening state of finances due to the pandemic soon changed those opinions. Part of the legalization process is the amount of tax revenue that can be received from gambling sites. With the early figures, the politicians must be wishing they’d introduced legal mobile sports betting a lot earlier than they did.
Sen. Joseph Addabbo Jr. was one of the politicians who was behind the legalization of mobile sports betting. He’s naturally delighted at how the first few weeks have gone. “Going back to the first week we started, we did as much in two days as we had in two years before that. And we’re still not even firing on all cylinders.” With the gambling revenue taxed at 51% in New York, it’s not surprising the state legislators are in a good mood.
FanDuel are one of the companies who have launched an online sportsbook. Their spokesperson Kevin Hennessey said that they always felt that New York would be a big market for them. However, he says that the results so far have “exceeded all of our expectations.” Hennessey went on to describe New York and New Jersey as “practically the centre of legal sports betting in the United States.”
They took nearly $502 million in bets during the period, with $23.6 million in revenue. That puts them a little bit behind Caesars who handled over $615 million and earned almost $56 million in revenue.
