Insane Market
Online sports betting went live in New York on Saturday, January 8, 2022. The New York sportsbooks began handling more money than people expected. The results through the first 16 days since the launch have been released. These sportsbooks have handled close to 1.2 billion dollars, generating 91.4 million dollars of revenue for themselves.
This amount of money is historic. New York’s January total should exceed the mark set by New Jersey sportsbooks which handled just over 1.3 billion dollars. The reported money that New York’s online sportsbooks handled through the first 16 days is the product of only five operators.
While PointsBet has gone live to become the sixth online sportsbook, its handle and revenue do not figure in the recorded totals through 16 days.
Anticipating the next release of handle and revenue data, the NFL’s Conference Championships will surely prove to be a major source of additional handle for these sportsbooks.
Caesars Sportsbook
While PointsBet surely won’t be the tops in New York in gross gaming revenue — Caesars Sportsbook appears to be number one in this respect, followed by DraftKings and FanDuel well behind them and then by BetMGM and BetRivers — their contribution should still be significant since current demand in New York has encouraged a seventh operator, Bally Bet, to go live as soon as April.
This volume — tilted rather heavily in Caesars’ favor — has caused some operational issues for the sportsbook. The book suffered a few outages and went down for a few hours. Some payouts were delayed and customer service merited complaints.
These operational issues should be understood and forgiven, though, considering the massive and unexpectedly huge betting traffic that Caesars even more than other New York sportsbooks is confronting.
Despite these hiccups, which are things that they can adjust for, the handle and revenue have been superb for Caesars both on weekly and overall levels. More specifically, through these first 16 days, Caesars has taken in just over 41 percent of the handle and 45.7 percent of the revenue.
FanDuel has taken in 30.6 percent of the handle, which is eight percent more than DraftKings, but the former’s revenue only exceeds the latter by 26.4 to 23.8. BetMGM and BetRivers have been contributing a few percent of both.
To be clear, it’s still a huge show for these more minor contributing sportsbooks. BetMGM, according to CEO Adam Greenblatt, has broken all of its records including records for new bettors. The market, in addition to being tremendous right now in New York, is continuing to grow as more residents of the state register for the online sports betting experience.
Great For New York
New York sportsbooks have generated 46.6 million dollars in tax revenue. This amount smashes the previous record, set by Pennsylvania with 23 million dollars in November.
The state of New York — its budget, specifically — is helped with respect to tax revenue by its 51% tax rate on revenue generated by betting. With the growing market, it is currently being anticipated that the state of New York could gain $249 million this year and tens if not hundreds of millions more in ensuing years.
