High marketing spend sees Pennsylvania sportsbook revenue fall by 59%

A reduced football calendar led to the state’s lowest handle since September.

Pennsylvania’s sports betting market witnessed a drop in activity during February, with the state recording its lowest handle since September. Conversely, the region’s online casino market continued to thrive with record high revenue per day. 

Sports betting handle came in at $597.1m for the month, according to data recorded by the Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board. From this, an impressive $68m came from Super Bowl bets alone. While this marks a modest 17% year-on-year boost, it is the lowest handle the state has experienced since September and is a drastic drop off from January’s record-breaking numbers. 

The news does not get much better for operators in the Keystone State, as revenue, which came in at $22.2m, dropped by 59% when compared to January’s $53.4m. To compound this further, due to massive promotional spending, the state’s sportsbooks actually lost $442,847 when it came to taxable revenue.  

Online betting continued to be the state’s main source of wagers during the second month of the year, accounting for 93.5% of all bets placed.

Meanwhile, FanDuel was the states most used and most profitable sportsbook with a handle of $213.2m and revenue of $6m. 

DraftKings followed its rival with $140.1m in wagers and $4.9m in revenue while BetMGM took third place with $72.3m and $4.3m in handle and revenue respectively.

While only marking a small percentage of total bets, revenue for retail sportsbooks still experienced a steep drop off, falling from $5.8m in taxable revenue for January to just $1m. 

While sports betting experienced a lull in February, the state’s online casino market fared better, falling by just 4.8% when compared to January’s numbers. Indeed, online casinos and poker rooms earned $123.7m in gross revenue and a record-breaking revenue per day of $4.4m. 

Overall, despite this drop off in sports betting activity and revenue – which was caused in part by exceedingly high marketing expenditure – the future is bright for sports betting in Pennsylvania with March Madness likely to set the market ablaze once more. 

Henry Moore

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