The Oregon Lottery’s online sports betting platform, Scoreboard, began its recovery from the sports shutdown in May.
According to the Oregon Lottery’s latest gaming report, the Lottery’s SBTech-powered sports betting app, Scoreboard, saw a 64.5% month-on-month increase in handle up to $7.3m.
The total number of bets placed also saw a 59.9% month-on-month jump to 223,325. Sports betting revenue saw an increase of 52.3% to $598,061.
Breaking down the figures
Due to the sports shutdown caused by the coronavirus pandemic, sports such as table tennis and MMA led betting activity in May.
According to the figures, table tennis accounted for $3.8m of the states total handle in May, representing 51.5% of the state’s total handle for the month.
MMA betting accounted for $1m in betting handle from 50,694 bets. The boost in MMA figures can be attributed to the return of UFC and its four events in May.
The return of the German soccer league, Bundesliga, helped push soccer handle up to $977,485 in May. The Korean Baseball Organization, another international league, had its first month of regular season play which accounted for $529,331 in baseball betting handle.
More bettors in May
With the resumption of sports, more players returned to the Scoreboard betting platform.
According to the figures, there were 7,763 unique active sports bettors in May up 44.5% from the 5,374 unique active bettors in April. This means that 25% of all active bettors who have placed at least one bet were active during May.
On top of this, there were 567 new player registrations in May, almost double the 286 new users that signed up in April.
Sports betting in Oregon
Prior to the passage of the professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act (PASPA), Oregon, Nevada, Montana and Delaware already offered a form of legal sports betting. The existing sports betting laws were ‘grandfathered’ in under PASPA allowing Oregon, and the other states, to continue to offer sports betting even after PASPA became law in 1992.
Oregon’s sports betting offering came in the form of its Sports Action parlay game which was shut down in 2007.
In June 2019, the Oregon Lottery inked a contract with SBTech to power the Lottery’s online and land-based sports betting products. The Lottery and SBTech launched the sports betting platform Scoreboard in October, a month later than initially expected.
Prior to the launch of Scoreboard, bettors in the state were limited to using the land-based sportsbook at the Chinook Winds Casino in Lincoln. The tribal casino launched sports betting in late August, and up until October, was the only legal sports betting option in the Beaver State.
The Lottery planned to begin the roll-out of its land-based betting kiosks in January, but the Lottery has yet to provide an update on when this will happen.
