Have US Sports Bettors Figured Out How To Beat The Books?

• Every quarterly report has watched the country’s sports bettors cut the books’ margins.
• In launch months, no state has seen bettors keep over 90% of the handle.
• With New York and Arkansas having launched in July, this trend is likely to be broken with 2019 Q3.

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. – Sportsbook live and die by how the gamblers in their area are utilizing the books. As we enter into the 15th month of legal sports betting since the PASPA repeal, sports bettors throughout the country are honing in on their betting strategies.

Each of the last four months has seen bettors take home a higher and higher percentage of the total amount wagered, cutting the books’ margins in the process.

To reference, Nevada has the longest sports betting history of all of the states and generally sees bettors take home anywhere between 93 to 96 percent of the handle. This leaves 4-7% to be kept by the books as their revenue before they must allocate a certain percentage of that to tax contributions.

In all of the states combined, the winning percentage by bettors has been reached the level of 93.6% since the repeal of PASPA – right in line with Nevada’s average.

As referenced above, the winning percentage has been increasing through the last four months and bettors have won as much as 96.62% for all of June’s reported action not far off from the record of 96.82% in January of this year.

While the total handle has decreased into the summer months, bettors are seeming to wager only on what they think they can win, and they have been proving that to the sportsbooks.

To pull the trend back even further, every quarterly report from 2018 Q3 has seen the winning percentage increase, proving that bettors are figuring it out and capitalizing on their new gambling hobby.

Through July, August, and September of last year, bettors kept 92.41% of all action, mainly due to the strong month of July reported by Nevada, where bettors kept 98.34% of all action. With a handle of roughly $245 million and only three states with legal sports betting (Nevada, Delaware, and New Jersey), this dominated the statistics.

Closing out the year in October, November, and December, bettors bumped up their winning percentage with the addition of Mississippi, West Virginia, Pennsylvania, and Rhode Island sportsbooks. Here, bettors kept 93.79% of all action with the belief that bettors were confident wagering on the NFL.

Switching into 2019, the first three months notched two months (January and March) where the betting handle exceeded $1 billion – still the only two months to hold this milestone. No new states legalized sports betting, but bettors continued their dominance and moved their winning percentage up to 94.14%.

The Super Bowl played a heavy role in this, as multiple sportsbooks about the country reported a loss in the month of February. Even further, the entire state of Rhode Island posted numbers in the red, losing almost $900,000 for the month – the only state to report a loss so far.

Now we head to the last reported three months (April, May, and June) with Nevada, Delaware, and Rhode Island yet to report. Without their statistics to add, bettors kept 94.42% of all action and, with Nevada’s trend following suit as well as the low handle amount for Delaware and prowess of Rhode Island bettors, it is safe to assume the winning percentage will remain above the last quarter.

It is unlikely this overall trend will continue moving into 2019 Q3, especially with the launch of Arkansas and New York sportsbooks. Every state, in their launch month, has seen major success due to bettors getting acclimated to sports wagering, as bettors have yet to break over the 90% mark.

A few states (Delaware, Mississippi, and Rhode Island) were close, allowing bettors to keep 87-89% of the action but the other states (New Jersey, West Virginia, and Pennsylvania) watched bettors only keep 64-80% of the action in their launch month.

We will not be privy to Arkansas or New York’s July monthly reports until sometime in August; however, this is a trend to keep your eyes on.

With only a few more days until the NFL preseason begins, the high betting handles will return and the sportsbooks will be praying that they can hold more than 5% of the action during the heavy months.