Iowa Reports Over $3.5 Million Bet Per Day in August, $108.4 Million Total Sports Betting Handle
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On Monday, the Iowa Racing and Gaming Corporation reported a sports betting handle of $108.4 million for August. That represented a huge bounce-back from a down month of July and the first month-over-month gain in betting volume since March. Iowa sports bettors wagered $3.5 million per day in August. That number is expected to grow as more online operators launch and the NFL season brings increased consumer interest in sports betting.
Iowa Sports Betting Revenue
Iowa’s $108.4 million August sports betting handle represents a huge recovery of about 22% from July when Iowa reported a handle of just $88.9 million, its first handle of under six figures since November 2020. The August 2021 sports betting handle also represented a 115.5% increase over August 2020. August is still the second-worst month of 2021 in terms of total sports betting handle, and more growth is expected in September.
Iowa now has an overall sports betting handle of over $1.7 billion at the time of writing, with just under $130 million in revenue from a 7.3% hold rate. Iowa has also collected almost $8 million in tax revenue from sports betting. August saw tax receipts total $486,608 in Iowa, a 1.5% increase from July, and sports betting has now generated almost $4.7 million in state tax revenue year-to-date.
Iowa Sportsbook Win Rate
Iowa sportsbooks collected just over $6.6 million in revenue in August – that’s a decrease of 6.9% from July and the second-lowest revenue total of the year behind only May. Operators have collected $68.5 million in profits for the year so far. The hold rate for sportsbooks in Iowa was 6.1%, almost 2% lower than the 8% recorded in July. If that 6.1% hold rate were Iowa’s overall hold rate, it would be the lowest of all states with legal sports betting markets.
Mobile Betting Operators
In August, Caesars Sportsbook has dominated in Iowa with a $34.8 million handle, representing 36.3% of the overall online handle. However, Caesars has not dominated in terms of its hold as it had a win rate of just 0.66% in August and claimed less than $230,000 in revenue. Caesars has failed to post a monthly win rate above 3.9% over the past four months, and despite its $130.8 million in betting handle over that span, it has collected just over $3 million in revenue. With lucrative signup offers and ongoing promotions, Caesars may need to scale it back to increase its revenue.
DraftKings was the top mobile operator in Iowa in August in terms of revenue, with $2.3 million collected from $29.9 million wagered. The top five in mobile operator revenue were rounded out by FanDuel ($14.1 million), BetMGM ($8.4 million), and PointsBet ($2.8 million). That top five made up just under 94% of the total mobile sports betting handle, with about $96 million wagered online at those five books. Mobile operators had a win rate of just 4.89% in August and collected under $5 million in revenue. PointsBet was the only sportsbook of the top five with a double-digit win rate.
Retail Betting Operators
While the online market made up most of the sports betting handle in Iowa, retail sportsbooks fared much better in terms of hold. Brick-and-mortar sportsbooks posted a 15.43% win rate with just under $2 million in revenue collected from over $12.3 million in the overall handle. 9 of the 18 retail sportsbooks in Iowa had a win rate of over 20%. The next step for the national mobile sports betting operators in Iowa will be figuring out how to get their win rate closer to the much more successful retail sportsbooks.
