Pennsylvania’s sportsbooks saw a dip in sports betting handle and revenue for the month of April.
According to figures released by the Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board (PGCB), sportsbooks in the state took $36.7m in sports wagers last month. This is a slight decrease from the $44.5m wagered on sports in March.
Revenue also took a small hit with sportsbooks generating $4.2m in April, which was down from $5.5m in March.
Sports betting in Pennsylvania is currently limited to land-based sportsbooks located at casinos in the state. However, regulators expect online and mobile sports betting to go live in the coming weeks.
Breaking down PA’s figures
Looking closer at the PGCB’s figures, the sportsbook at Rivers Casino was once again the most popular bookie amongst punters in the state. The sportsbook took $8.1m in wagers and managed to hold on to $871,753.
The sportsbook at SugarHouse Casino trailed close behind Rivers, taking $7.9m in bets and generating a revenue of $781,163.
Parx Casino took $6.8m in sports wagers, making it the third most popular bookie in the state. But in terms of revenue Parx generated $907,298 making it the highest earning sportsbook in April.
In terms of tax revenue, the state of Pennsylvania received a total of $1.5m from sports betting operations in April.
When will online betting launch in PA?
The figures for April only account for land-based sportsbooks, although the state legalized online and mobile betting, it has yet to go live.
In April, a spokesperson for the PGCB said that online sports betting would launch within three weeks. It has now been four weeks since that statement was made, and no sports betting apps have launched in the state.
However, on Wednesday at the ICE North America conference in Boston, Susan Hensel, Director of Licensing for the PGCB said that the launch of mobile sports betting in Pennsylvania is “imminent” and “coming very soon.”
Although Pennsylvania’s sports betting figures have been strong in recent months, online and mobile betting would significantly boost these numbers and allow Pennsylvania’s sports betting market to reach its full potential.
New Jersey and Nevada are currently the only two states with live mobile sports betting and are currently the two largest sports betting markets in the country.
In April, New Jersey’s sportsbooks took more than $313m in wagers and managed to generate $21m in revenue. For the fourth consecutive month in New Jersey, online wagers accounted for 80% of sports betting handle which amounted to more than $253m, highlighting the importance of an online betting component.
Elsewhere in the US, Mississippi’s sportsbooks took $19.1m in sports bets in April and generated $2m in revenue.
Sportsbooks in Delaware saw a significant dip in April, with punters wagering $6m on sporting events and bookies holding on to just $615,772.
For an in-depth look at each state’s sports betting statistics visit the BettingUS stats page.
