Just three of New York’s sportsbooks topped $100 million in bets taken during August, with the top two continuing to move further ahead of the pack on market share.
The start of the NFL season has provided the state’s sportsbook operators with a welcome boost after a sluggish summer.
The upward trend of the second half of the year should accelerate further when the basketball season returns in late October, and interest in NBA betting should increase quite significantly amongst New York’s sports fans.
But despite the efforts of the smaller sportsbooks to improve their products and promos, they still show little sign of denting the now 80 percent market share of DraftKings and FanDuel.
Aside from a slow period, the main story of the summer has been the ding-dong between the pair of top dogs in New York’s sports betting sector.
FanDuel moved ahead of DraftKings in July as the state’s biggest book but the two swapped places again as number one and two in terms of handle and gross revenue (after adjusting straight cash taken in wagers for payouts to winning bets) in August.
Handle and GGR figures for New York’s active sportsbooks in August were:
Sportsbook | Handle | GGR |
DraftKings | $401,714,442 | $46,805,324 |
FanDuel | $358,096,291 | $41,494,855 |
Caesars | $120,094,926 | $9,558,652 |
BetMGM | $70,514,612 | $6,540,914 |
BetRivers | $36,312,267 | $2,993,156 |
PointsBet | $17,066,764 | $914,020 |
WynnBET | $8,495,713 | $752,704 |
Resorts WorldBET | $4,228,636 | $322,945 |
The battle between FanDuel and DraftKings has a long way to run yet and we can expect further position changes for the rest of this year and beyond.
For a prolonged period, the twosome accounted for around three-quarters of all betting dollars staked in New York. However, that market share continues to swell and stood at a combined eight out of ten as August ended.
That left their closest competitors - Caesars and BetMGM - stuck on 11% and 5% market share respectively last month.
As stated, Caesars topped $100 million in wagers with a handle of $120,094,926, while BetMGM recorded a handle of $70,514,612.
It also means that the remaining five NY legal sportsbooks only account for approximately 4% of all money gambled on sports in the state. Worrying perhaps for them is that it’s the biggest four betting firms who are slowly eroding their market share.
With competition in the market fierce, some sportsbooks are currently offering attractive NY betting promos.
For example, BetMGM is currently offering up to $1,000 in bonus bets to new customers who sign up using the code NYSBMGM, which could be a great way to get into the new NFL betting season.
As the midway point was reached in September, and after installment one of the NFL season, the total NY betting handle hit a weekly fiscal year high of $416,062,583.
That number represented a huge 68 percent jump on the average weekly amount in August.
That boost in September compared with the previous month can also be explained in part by the fact that August 2023 saw NY market betting revenue fall by a percentage point year-on-year. That’s the first time since sports gambling was legalized in the state that this has happened.
As we enter the final fortnight of September it will be interesting to see the impact of the NFL’s second-round slate. We can probably expect a dip among wagers taken by NY sportsbooks following the enormous interest generated by the Monday night primetime Jets vs. Bills game.
With most expecting a Bills win, we might also see some sportsbooks take a hit in GGR if they paid out big to Jets backers who entered the Metlife at around a +110 underdog on the moneyline and +2 on the spread, with the Jets coming out winners on the night.
