The surge in sports betting seen during the early part of the National Football League’s regular season still has legs.
Vancouver, British Columbia-based GeoComply Solutions Inc. reported Monday that the volume of wagering in the United States keeps shattering records four weeks into the NFL season.
The company, which helps determine where bettors are, said it processed 330 million geolocation transactions across 18 states and the District of Columbia for the first four weeks of the season, albeit not including the Monday night game. It was a 122-percent increase over the same four weeks of the 2020 season, when there were 149 million transactions processed, GeoComply said.
GeoComply also reported in September that there was a 126-percent year-over-year increase in geolocation transactions it processed in the U.S. during the NFL’s Week 1, the Sunday and Monday night games not included.
New Jersey has led the way with the highest volume of transactions through the first four weeks of the NFL season, followed by Pennsylvania, Michigan, Arizona, and Illinois, GeoComply said.
The numbers from GeoComply — which says it “supports nearly 100 percent of the U.S. online sports betting market for geolocation compliance” — highlight two major drivers of legal sports betting: the popularity of the NFL and the growing number of markets in which wagering is allowed.
“We’re excited to see the growth of sports betting from the first NFL weekend has carried over to the first four weeks of the season,” said Lindsay Slader, managing director of gaming at GeoComply, in a press release. “The data also confirms the first week in Arizona was not just a one-off, but that the state has solidified its place as the fourth largest sports betting market in the U.S."
More tailwinds
The sports betting tailwinds are still blowing strong, too. The NFL season is not even halfway through, and additional states are set to let online sportsbooks launch in the near future, such as Louisiana.
Betting interest in the NFL has indeed been boosted by marquee matchups like that of the Week 4 Sunday night game between Bill Belichick’s New England Patriots and Tom Brady’s Tampa Bay Buccaneers. The Sunday nighter was a sizable liability for some sportsbooks, which the Patriots mostly erased after only losing by two points to the Bucs.
The amount of success states are having in moving bettors over to books they regulate, rather than ones based overseas, could also influence lawmakers in jurisdictions that have yet to legalize. Sizable markets, such as Massachusetts and Ohio, are still debating whether to take the plunge into legal sports betting, and the big numbers seen so far this NFL season may not pass unnoticed by state legislators.
It is not just state governments that are increasingly embracing sports betting either, as there has been more and more gambling-related advertising and content injected into NFL games and associated media coverage. That integration could continue, or taper off, depending on the league’s thoughts about the results thus far.
"With more states poised to come online in the coming weeks and months, we expect growth will continue to accelerate through 2021 and 2022," GeoComply's Slader said.
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*NFLN exclusive 3-game TNF avg. of 8.1 million (TV+Digital) - highest since 2018
Release: https://t.co/kadhOjfBU7 pic.twitter.com/PDKjTuSsqy
Football season has been seen as an ideal target for launching legal wagering as well. In New York, for instance, a longstanding hope has been that mobile sports betting launches before the Super Bowl.
Connecticut launched retail sports wagering just in time for Week 4 of the NFL, with Foxwoods Resort Casino and the Mohegan Sun opening sportsbooks last Thursday. The state is expected to launch online sports betting soon as well.
Rodney Butler, chairman of the Mashantucket Pequot Tribal Nation, said they were “very pleased” with the volume of bets that were placed at a temporary DraftKings Sportsbook and kiosks at Foxwoods following a “soft” launch.
“We are looking forward to the start of statewide mobile sports betting and iGaming, which is expected to launch this month pending regulatory approvals,” Butler added in an emailed statement.
The NFL-assisted boom in sports betting has spilled over into Canada too, where single-game wagering was legalized this past summer.
Ontario Lottery and Gaming Corp. said the Bucs-Pats game was the most popular event yet for its PROLINE+ online sportsbook, which launched on August 27. There have now been approximately 3.45 million bets overall since PROLINE+ opened its digital doors, with 34 percent of all wagers placed on NFL events, according to OLG.
The province of Ontario is also working on a competitive market for internet gaming that will include sports betting and is currently slated to launch in December.
“Ontario’s new legal iGaming market will create new opportunities for Ontario businesses and a better, safer gaming experience for players,” Finance Minister Peter Bethlenfalvy said in a July press release.
