Nevada Sports Betting Sees Decline
The February sports betting numbers for the state of Nevada are in, and it was a pretty disappointing month for sportsbooks and for the state in general. The total sports betting handle in February was $780.8 million, which was a near 30% drop from the total in January.
While all of the sports betting saw a steep drop, it was the mobile side of things that really let the sports betting industry down. The total mobile betting handle was just $512.4 million, a drop of nearly 35 percent from January.
February was a rough month for the entire U.S. sports betting industry, and a shorter month was just one of the main reasons. The Super Bowl was the only NFL game played during the month, and that limited the betting options.
Not only did the total sports betting handle drop for the month of February, but sportsbooks also saw the revenue go down as well. Nevada sportsbooks posted total revenue of $30.9 million, which was a drop of 38% from the month of January.
Basketball Bettors Win Big
The biggest reason that the revenue numbers took a major hit in Nevada is that the hold rate was extremely low. The hold percentage was just 3.96% for the month of February, and the state average is actually right around 5.78%.
It was the sport of basketball that sunk the sportsbooks but allowed the sports bettors to win big for the month. Basketball was the most popular sport to wager on, but the hold rate was just 2.75% percent on that sport.
In February, sportsbooks in Nevada brought in $12.5 million on basketball wagers, but the total handle for that sport was $456.3 million. The total sports betting handle for football was $181.9 million in January, and that sport brought in more than $450 million in January.
Parlay betting produced a hold rate of 28% for the month, but this type of wager was not extremely popular in February. The total handle from parlay wagers was just $1.1 million.
Still Year-to-Year Growth
Even though the numbers from February were a big drop from the previous months, sports betting is still on the rise in Nevada. A quick look at the year-to-year numbers show just how much growth has taken place, and Nevada is still on track to be competitive with other states.
The state of Nevada saw a sports betting growth of more than 40% when looking at the sports betting handle for February 2021. That is one of the biggest jumps in the industry compared to some of the other biggest states.
Revenue numbers from 2022 actually fell from the totals in 2021, and that was the case with several other states. Nevada saw a drop of nearly 3% in the total sports betting revenue year-over-year, leading to just $2.1 million in tax revenue.
