Delaware Sees $17 Million In Sports Bets For First Month Of Football Season


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Delaware sports betting in September

Delaware quickly saw the impact of football season on its bottom line for sports betting.

The Delaware Lottery reported that it took just under $17 million in sportsbook wagers for a period that encompassed the first month of the college football and NFL seasons.

That is more than double the amount of sports wagers handled by the state’s sportsbooks in the previous period reported by the lottery.

The latest from Delaware sports betting

The state saw $16,830,010 in wagers for the period from Aug. 27 through Sept. 30, according to the latest numbers from the lottery.

The last period in Delaware was just $7.7 million in wagers. (The comparison is not apples to apples, as it covered fewer days, July 29 through Aug. 26.)

The average daily handle was $481,000 a day, up from $276,000 a day in August. That’s the obvious effect of football season, which is the most popular betting sport for Americans.

Operators generated $3.15 million in revenue for the period ending Sept. 30.

The state has seen nearly $40 million in wagers and more than $5 million in revenue since the launch of sports betting in the state in June. The state has held about 7.6 percent of wagers.

Breaking it down by Delaware casino

The numbers for Delaware sports betting came only from the state’s three physical sportsbooks — there is no online wagering yet, like there is in New Jersey.

Like in past months, the vast majority of wagering came from Delaware Park:

Parlay wagering in Delaware

The figures above do not count NFL parlay wagering (bets on the outcomes of multiple games) that is available in about 100 lottery retail locations around the state, a legal product even before the federal sports betting ban was struck down this year.

For parlay betting, the state took $6.4 million in wagers, holding about $2.2 million of those wagers.

If you blend parlay wagering and sportsbook wagering, the state took about $23 million in wagers and kept $5.4 million, for a hold percentage of 23 percent.

New Jersey > Delaware?

The numbers in Delaware are going to pale in comparison to those in the nascent NJ sports betting industry.

New Jersey, with eight online and eight physical sportsbooks, took in about $100 million wagers in August, and it figures to do much better in September and beyond.

While New Jersey has about nine times the population of Delaware, NJ will certainly outstrip the amount of wagers and revenue on a per capita basis.