New Hampshire Sports Betting Handle: February Drops to $50.9 Million
Contents
Despite the Super Bowl kicking off the month of February, New Hampshire saw both its sports betting handle and revenue drop. While not a huge blow, the final sports betting handle came in at $50.995 million, and the revenue came in at $1.788 million. When comparing February and January, you see almost a 15 percent drop in handle, going from $59.795 million to $50.995 million. However, revenue took an even larger hit reducing by over 50 percent. January brought in a whopping $4.197 million, which was significantly higher in every metric to February’s revenue.
Another significant drop for New Hampshire was their state revenue share. The current deal that New Hampshire has sees them receive around 50% of the gross revenue that DraftKings pulls in. In return, DraftKings is able to run a monopoly in the state. The state only received $769,387, the lowest amount since August of 2020. In January, the state brought in over $1.8 million.
What Caused the Drop
New Hampshire was not alone in the sports betting handle drop as many states struggle with February handles. The Super Bowl does give sports betting a massive boost, but following that, there are only NHL and NBA games to bet on. On top of this, the NBA is dealing with its All-star break, which is not a big betting ticket.
When looking at the retail and mobile betting breakdowns there is roughly a similar percentage drop in each of them, with mobile betting going from $49.4 million in January to $42.9 million in February and retail dropping from $10.3 million to $8 million. It is interesting to note that the pandemic was severely worse in January. Now, if this actually deterred retail bettors in the month or was actually part of the cause for the spike in cases, it is unknown.
Looking Ahead
March could be a rebound month for New Hampshire. There have been some big golf events like the Players Championship. Then you have both the NHL and NBA in full swing. On top of this MLB future bets are being laid out. However, most importantly, March Madness is upon us.
March Madness will be massive for each and every state with sports betting. New Hampshire does allow collegiate betting; however, you cannot place wagers on schools from the state. That was not a worry as no March Madness matchups included Dartmouth or the University of New Hampshire. Therefore, bettors had a full slate of options and could wager on whatever their hearts desired.
If this is enough to compete with January, when the NFL playoffs and Super Bowl betting were going on, no one is sure. However, the numbers will most likely see a plateau or an uptick with all the events that are being played out over March.
Monopoly
There has been some talk on whether DraftKings’ monopoly affects betting negatively in the state. However, based on the population, it seems that DraftKings is doing a good job of reaching the entire market. On top of that, New Hampshire is able to pull in revenue numbers for the state similarly to much larger markets like Colorado due to this monopoly. As long as that continues, it seems like it is a win for the state.
