Michigan Sees Sports Betting Handle of over $257M for May 2021

The Michigan sports betting industry saw another drop in numbers, but that is expected to be a trend throughout the United States. Michigan should still remain as one of the emerging leaders in the industry despite the slight decrease.

The total sports betting handle for May was $257.8 million, according to the Michigan Gaming Control Board. That was a drop of nearly six percent from the $274.2 million reported in April.

Online sports betting continues to be the most popular form of betting in the state as it made up 92% of the total handle. The online handle was $237.6 million, a decrease of five percent from the April total.

Michigan saw nearly $360 million wagered during the month of March, and that is the highest total on record for the state. Sports betting officially launched in March 2020, but online betting was not available until January 2021.

The state continues to welcome new operators to the industry, even though there were 10 options available on the first day that online betting was available. Detroit has three commercial casinos, and the rest of the state is made up of tribal casinos and sportsbooks.

Tax Revenue Sees Big Jump

Even though the overall handle fell, the state saw more tax revenue for the month of May. This was due to online sportsbooks offering fewer promotions for the month and winning more money from the customers.

The state collected over $615,000 in tax revenue for the month of May, and that was close to a 100% jump from April. The city of Detroit received nearly $379,000, an increase of more than 102 percent from April.

These are the numbers that are most important to Detroit and Michigan as they still work to recover from financial losses suffered during the pandemic.

FanDuel Leads, DraftKings Improves

FanDuel quickly emerged as the online leader in January, and it has stayed on top in all five months since the industry launched. FanDuel posted a total handle of $77.6 million in May and had a gross revenue of $10 million.

BetMGM has been in second place, but it was DraftKings that took over that spot in May. DraftKings had a total sports betting handle of $66.7 million, and it is starting to close the gap on FanDuel.

BetMGM ($59.5 million), Barstool Sportsbook (24 million), and PointsBet ($11.3) million were the other operators that finished in the top five.

Online Casinos Doing Well

Michigan also launched online casino gaming in January, and that industry has continued to perform well. The online casino revenue for the month of May was $94.85 million, and it was nearly identical to the total posted in April.

BetMGM Casino was the leader in May, and it has dominated the industry since its launch. BetMGM had revenue of $36.1 million last month, which accounted for 38 percent of the market share.

FanDuel and DraftKings were the next two biggest operators in May, but they were well behind BetMGM.