Despite July being a traditionally sluggish sports betting month, the Arizona Department of Gaming reported a substantial year-over-year increase with over $323 million in accepted sports bets over the course of the month.
Sports Betting Heating Up in the Desert
As stated above, Arizona sports betting is growing more robust, having surpassed last year’s handle by 11.3% on revenues of $323.2 million. The healthy handle generated $34.5 million in gross revenue, and after promotional deductions, the state took in just shy of $2.7 million in taxes during the month of July.
And once again the stark dichotomy between what mobile betting brings to the table versus the handle generated via brick-and-mortar locations is stark. During July, mobile betting registered $320.2 million while retail sportsbooks handled only $2.5 million.
After taking approximately $8 million in promotional deductions the combined adjusted gross revenue was $26.8 million. The mobile betting sites raked in virtually all that revenue with $26.6 million versus only $145,433 in retail AGR.
… But Neighboring City Still Reigns Mobile Betting
This is illustrative of the national trend with mobile betting responsible for well over 90% of the wagers, except in Nevada where the iconic Las Vegas Strip and downtown casinos have long established themselves as having glamorous sportsbooks that take high-volume sports betting action, representing as much as 30% of the handle which is unheard of in any other state.
Station Casinos sportsbook vice president Jason McCormick commented on why the Las Vegas sportsbooks continue to bring in the numbers, “First and foremost, we still have some of the best destination sportsbooks where people want to come in and watch their games.
“There’s no better place, whether it’s March Madness or Sunday morning football when you have eight games than to sit in our big, beautiful sportsbooks and be able to watch all these games at the same time.”
Although the Arizona retail casinos don’t carry the same cachet as those found in Vegas, we should point out that there are dozens of casinos owned by Native American tribes or tribal casino conglomerates, many with retail sportsbooks housed within them.
Platform Providers’ Rankings
FanDuel claimed the top spot in terms of handle and gross revenue with $113.7 million in accepted wagers and $13.6 million in gross revenue on a 12% hold. DraftKings trailed its chief rival in both categories with $102.4 million in bets generated delivering gross revenue of $10.2 million on a hold of 10% in July.
BetMGM made the podium and took home the bronze medal with a $43.3 million handle and $5.9 million in gross revenue on a whopping 13.6% win rate. The iconic Las Vegas brand, Caesars, registered $32.6 million in wagers accepted in July with just a tad under $2.5 million in gross revenue on a 7.7% hold.
Those were the top four Arizona place-setters in July but the duopoly of FanDuel and DraftKings continues to dominate the market. Nevertheless, Caesars has come a long way this year and the prognosis is good for better times ahead in the digital sports betting market for one of the industry’s most well-recognized brands.
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