Arizona sports betting went live four days ago but is already performing like a top-five US market.
According to new data, GeoComply registered 6.1 million AZ sports betting geolocation pings between launch on Thursday and 4 pm PT Sunday. Pings can be bets or log-ins.
That put the state fourth in the US, ahead of Illinois and behind only:
- New Jersey
- Pennsylvania
- Michigan
Arizona accounted for 10% of all legal online US transactions, with customers creating 271,000 new accounts in those four days.
Pent-up demand for Arizona sportsbooks
GeoComply said its data covered “nearly 100%” of the legal online US industry, including 18 states and Washington DC.
“Arizona is showing that there is pent up demand for sports betting in the western part of the US,” said GeoComply’s gaming MD Lindsay Slader. “We haven’t seen anything quite like it.”
Across the country, it was a record four-day stretch for US sports betting, with transactions up 126% year-on-year to 58.2 million.
“The data tells a remarkable story about the growth of the industry in a short period of time,” Slader said.
Explosive growth in new states
Michigan was the other big driver of growth, ranking third in overall transactions at 7.5 million, or 12.9% of the US total.
Even New Jersey, the most mature market in the country, grew 35% year-on-year.
PA sports betting was up 46%
Heavy load on US sports betting platforms
Of course, the huge spike in volume had its drawbacks.
Midway through the early NFL slate, DraftKings had live betting issues in all sportsbook markets. Users in Colorado reported “no football product at all” at one point, while Indiana and Michigan also had troubles.
DraftKings migrated onto its SBTech platform in recent months. The volume avalanche of an NFL Sunday is always a potential banana skin.
Users also reported some minor issues with FanDuel and Barstool Sportsbook.
