New York State’s mobile sports betting market is once again heating up with the arrival of this year’s March Madness. On Friday, the New York Stage Gaming Commission reported that for the week ending on March 5, 2023, local bettors have placed more than US$410 million in wagers via the state’s nine online sportsbook apps and their preferred sporting event.
The Empire State saw the start of its regulated online sports betting sector on January 8, 2022, and it operates via nine digital sportsbooks. According to Gov. Kathy Hochul for its first year of accepting wagers, the market brought in more than US$700 million in tax revenue for the state, while also bringing another US$200 million from licensing fees.
Starting Off March Strong
The latest weekly reports from the New York State Gaming Commission, which regulates the market, find that for the week concluding on March 5, 2023, operators generated an online betting handle of US$410.8 million. This is a major increase over the previous week’s results when New Yorkers wagered approximately US$353.8 million through the nine bookmakers.
NYSGC’s report also stated that gross gaming revenue for the said week reached US$25.8 million, which was a slight decrease from the prior week’s number of US$28.4 million. This means that the hold for the sports betting operators was just 6.3% which was lower than the February 25 week one of 8%. Also, operators are taxed at the heavy 51% on revenue.
Despite the fluctuation around the online wagering handle, there were no changes in the rankings among operators. Locally-based FanDuel again reigned supreme as it collected the largest portion of the total betting handle. The operator reported a weekly wagering volume on its platform of US$169.3 million for the week of March 5 which translated to over US$8.8 million in pre-tax proceeds.
Second place was again reserved for DraftKings as the bookmaker took in over US$137.4 million in weekly betting activity. It reported US$10.4 million in revenue which was higher than FanDuel’s tally. Meanwhile, Caesars Sportsbook was again in third, with over US$55.8 million in online wagers, and almost US$3 million in gross gaming revenue for the week.
Passing Changes on Advertising
At the start of March, the NYSGC held a meeting during which it almost unanimously passed regulations on sports betting advertising in the state. The new rules will attempt to regulate sports wagering advertising, marketing, and promotion, amidst concerns regarding advertising and marketing of sports wagers to college and university campuses. However, the new regulations are not yet in effect.
In January 2023, democrats Luis R. Sepúlveda and Leroy Comrie presented Senate Bill S1550. If passed the legislation would require all gambling and sports betting commercials in the state to include alerts about a possible negative effect. In addition to that, it will also mandate that all ads come with the New York problem gambling hotline number 1-877-8-HOPENY.
