Pennsylvania sportsbooks generate August handle of $349m; iGaming going strong

Pennsylvania sportsbooks accepted $349m in August handle, a 14.5% increase from July.
August wagers were down 4.5% year-on-year.

Sports betting gross gaming revenue was $25.3m, a 7.9% decrease from July and a y-o-y drop of 8.3%. Pennsylvania received $6.1m in state taxes, while $360,000 went to local share assessments.

Pennsylvania benefited from the return of NFL preseason games and a small slate of college football games near the end of the month, but it wasn’t enough to offset an otherwise slow August for Keystone State bettors.

“An inglorious exit from the NBA playoffs, the struggles of the Pittsburgh Pirates, and the inconsistency of the Phillies, conspired to make this a relatively slow summer for Pennsylvania’s sportsbooks,” said Dustin Gouker, analyst for the PlayUSA.com Network. “It took just a handful of games in August to show how important football is to the sports-betting industry.”

Online wagering accounted for $318m, or 91.3%, of all handle. FanDuel led the online market with handle of $136m, while DraftKings was runner-up with $80m.

Rivers Philadelphia led all retail sportsbooks with $5.1m in wagers.

“Revenue generation is important this time of year, too, but football is often a springboard for operators to build relationships with new customers,” Gouker said. “This is why operators are aggressive with their football-related promotional offerings and advertising campaigns, particularly around the opening weeks of the season. It’s also a time when giants such as FanDuel and DraftKings really can exploit their resource advantage over smaller operators.”

For the sixth consecutive month, iGaming posted over $100m in GGR with $103m in August, up 54.8% y-o-y and down 1.2% from July.

Home state operator Penn National led the iGaming market with $35.1m in GGR. Its partners include DraftKings, BetMGM, Barstool and Hollywood casinos.

iGaming generated $39.4m in state and local taxes for the month.

Ezra Amacher

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