June gives bettors the NBA Finals, but those five games could not break the unsurprising trend that betting action drops deeper into the summer months.
Arizona’s Department of Gaming announced that the state accepted $454.1 million in bets for June, 20% less than the $568.5 million from May. To make matters worse for the house, the hold percentage fell from 10.7% in May to 10% in June. That means the gross revenue for the books fell to $45.8 million.
Bad news hurt everyone with customers seeing $2.5 million fewer free bets while the state reported $3.1 million in taxes, down more than a million from the previous month.
Despite the drop in numbers across the board, there is plenty of good. Compared to June 2023, handle is up more than 15%, revenue is up 66%, free bets up 28%, and tax revenue up 93%.
DraftKings the new top dog
After coming in second to FanDuel by less than $5 million in May, DraftKings is now the top Arizona sports betting operator. On top of that, the book offered $1 million fewer free bets. But FanDuel’s revenue was still largest in this highly competitive field.
ESPN BET also fell one spot, dropping behind Fanatics, but with its handle around 10% of the top sportsbooks, the switch in placement here may not be a big topic of conversation.
Here is the breakdown of mobile operators with more than $5 million in bets.
| Operator | June Handle | Revenue |
|---|---|---|
| DraftKings | $153.9 million | $13.8 million |
| FanDuel | $149 million | $10.5 million |
| BetMGM | $51.7 million | $3 million |
| Caesars | $28 million | $1.2 million |
| bet365 | $19 million | $864,000 |
| Fanatics | $16.8 million | $417,000 |
| ESPN BET | $12.6 million | $607,000 |
| BetRivers | $5.2 million | $282,000 |
