State rakes $300K in first full month of sports betting
Massachusetts gamblers bet nearly a million dollars a day on sports in February, according to the state’s gaming commission, and that’s just a fraction of what is to come, one expert says.
“February marked the first full month of sports wagering at each property after those licensee’s launched the new industry on January 31, 2023. Approximately $2.01 million in taxable sports wagering revenue was generated,” the commission said with the release of their February revenue report.
According to the commission, over the 28 days of February, Massachusetts betters spent $25.7 million gambling on professional and college sports.
Of that $25 million, after writing off payouts and promotions, only $2 million was reported by the state’s casinos as revenue, generating $301,533.52 in taxes for the commonwealth’s coffers.
“I would say that is slightly below what I expect, but not too far off. I would be expecting about $500 million (in revenue) a year — that would be short of that,” Victor Matheson, a professor of economics and expert on sports betting at the College of the Holy Cross, told the Herald.
February’s numbers aren’t terrible, Matheson said, but really don’t tell the whole story when it comes to the state’s newest industry.
“Quite honestly what happens in the casinos is unimportant in the big picture when it comes to sports betting in Massachusetts,” he said. “The real betting started last Friday with the launch of mobile betting.”
After an Act regulating sports wagering was signed into law by Gov. Charlie Baker last summer, the state’s gaming commission worked for months to develop regulations for the new industry before launching betting at Encore Boston Harbor, MGM Springfield, and Plainridge Park casino at the end of January.
Mobile betting was set for a later launch — March 10 — to allow the commission more time to vet new gambling operators and develop mobile-specific rules.
The staggered launch means that the numbers the state is reporting for February are far from what the state will see in the months and years to come, according to Matheson.
“If Massachusetts looks like New Jersey and Pennsylvania and states with lots of mobile gaming options — not like Rhode Island which just has one — but if we look like New Jersey, we’re likely to see numbers that are 10 to 20 times that when people can bet on their phones,” he said.
Matheson’s prediction seems to track with early interest.
GeoComply, a company that provides geolocation and fraud detection services, said that during the weekend following mobile betting’s launch they recorded over 400,000 unique player account creations and tracked 8.1 million betting transactions.