In sports, records are made to be broken and, in sports gambling, those records are made for crazy parlays you can brag to your group chat buddies about.
Just two weeks after allowing sports betting on phones, New York (and New York gamblers) have encountered this once-fantasy scenario. The first four mobile sportsbooks in the state took a whopping $603 million in bets between their January 8 launch and January 16.
The Tortoise and the Parlay
New York may be home to The City That Never Sleeps, but it was late to this party. Residents in neighboring New Jersey have been able to bet on sports from their phone or laptop since 2018 and the Garden State has benefited from an enormous boost as a result. In October, New Jersey announced over $1.3 billion was bet on sports that month alone, the vast majority coming from people’s electronic devices. Two other neighbors — Pennsylvania and Connecticut — also got the jump on the Empire State.
Last year, New York greenlit two consortiums — one consisting of Caesars Sportsbook, Wynn Interactive, Resorts World, and Chicago’s Rush Street, the other of FanDuel, DraftKings, BetMGM, and Bally’s Interactive — to take the lead on launching its own mobile gambling ecosystem. Like the proverbial tortoise, the state very quickly lapped its competition:
- The $603 million in bets during the launch period equals $67 million per day in wagering and, according to analysts at PlayNY, that level crushes the $41.9 million in sports wagers per day placed during New Jersey’s record October.
- The mobile gambling consortiums in New York made $48.2 million in revenue from bets placed between January 8 to 16 — Caesar’s led the pack with $22.7 million in gross revenues, followed by FanDuel with $14.1 million and DraftKings with $10.9 million.
Take the Split: The state takes a 51% cut of revenues from mobile gambling, meaning it made a cool $24.6 million in less than two weeks. The money will go to educational funding, jobs, a $6 million fund for addiction programs, and $5 million for youth sports throughout the state. Call it a win-win.
