Happy Monday, everyone, and condolences to those with busted brackets.
March Madness should dominate sports betting news this week with it looking relatively quiet from a legislative and earnings perspective.
Make sure to tune into the LSR Podcast for a look at some of last week’s top stories. The crew dove into some of the bigger topics written about at LSR including why game broadcasts are slow to adopt betting talk.
Follow @LSPReport for any and all breaking news updates throughout the week.
Top sports betting news: No stunner as February slows
A combination of a shorter month, significantly fewer NFL betting opportunities and a break in the NBA and NHL schedule means February‘s US sports betting reports are showing big drops from January. A rebound is expected in almost every jurisdiction this month thanks to March Madness betting, though.
Out of 14 jurisdictions to report, handle is down 46.3% and sports betting revenue down 60.7% in February compared to the prior month. Just one jurisdiction reported growth so far: Washington DC. That is an interesting outlier considering District-wide mobile sportsbook GambetDC crashed for Super Bowl betting.
There are still a number of big states that have to report results before February’s picture is totally clear. That includes Nevada, Colorado, Virginia and Illinois, the latter of which saw its last full month with in-person registration.
Some recent states to report include Indiana, Maryland, New Jersey, Tennessee,
KY Senate finally will see Koenig proposal
Rep. Adam Koenig‘s bill to legalize sports betting in Kentucky will finally travel to the Senate after four years.
The House passed HB 606, 58-30, on Friday but there is not much time left for the Senate to act. There are nine days of the Kentucky session left.
It could be another lengthy wait for legal KY sports betting if the bill is not passed this year. Kentucky meets for a shortened legislative session in odd-numbered years, with a three-fifths majority required for passage.
Other states with sports betting bills to watch include Maine, Minnesota and Missouri.
NY sports betting might expand without tax change
Instead of risking a drop in tax revenue, the NY Assembly and Senate are trying to push a mobile market expansion without a change in the 51% tax rate.
Both chambers included more sports betting licenses in their one-house budgets.
An initial proposal to increase mobile NY sportsbooks included dropping the tax rate to 25%. Doing so would almost guarantee a drop in tax dollars, though, which Sen. Joe Addabbo Jr. said is a non-starter.
More Ontario operators approved
The list of licensed sports betting operators ready to launch Ontario sports betting April 4 continues to grow with some big names approved recently.
One of the biggest names in the US betting industry, FanDuel, and bet365, a former gray-market operator in Canada, are both approved to operate in Canada.
Analysis on two sports betting stocks
DraftKings could have less than two years of cash on hand left if it continues operating how it did in 2021. The easiest way to curb that would be to cut marketing costs, though that likely would lead to a drop in US market share.
Genius Sports, meanwhile, looks like a potential takeover target with its shrinking market cap.
