With a strong sports schedule over Thanksgiving weekend, the launch of online Maryland sports betting nearly matched a mature market in transactions.
Maryland sportsbooks registered 16.5 million transactions from Nov. 23 to Nov. 27, according to a GeoComply release Monday. The total was just short of the 17.1 million transactions measured in New Jersey sports betting during the same period.
“A strong start for the regulated market delivers on the promise of new revenues and consumer protections,” GeoComply SVP Compliance Lindsay Slader said in the release. “Marylanders will continue to ditch illegal offshore sportsbooks for the security of legal, regulated operators that provide player safeguards and tax dollars for the state, just as lawmakers intended.”
Demand for online Maryland sports betting
Online sports betting in Maryland launched Wednesday after more than two years of waiting since voters approved it in November 2020. Seven operators were able to capture pent-up demand with a full slate of sports that included:
- NFL betting
- College football betting
- College basketball betting
- NBA betting
- World Cup betting
There were 477,365 unique accounts active, according to GeoComply. On Thanksgiving Day, there were 3.7 million transactions.
How Maryland stacks up
Aside from New Jersey, Maryland transactions outpaced many similar-sized US sports betting markets.
There were nearly double the number of transactions in Maryland than in neighboring Virginia, despite a smaller population, 6.2 million residents compared to 8.6 million. It was also nearly four times the amount of transactions than Colorado, which has approximately 300,000 fewer residents.
In September, GeoComply tracked 2.3 million pings from 132,000 unique users during the first weekend of Kansas sports betting. Earlier this year, the Louisiana launch recorded 3.4 million pings during the NFL Conference Championship weekend.
MD sports betting handle
Maryland regulators plan to release the next revenue report Dec. 12, which will include the first week of online sports betting.
Prior to the launch, regulators noted an Eilers & Krejcik sports betting revenue estimate of $123.3 million in 2023.
Since retail sportsbooks in the state opened in December 2021, operators have taken $280 million in bets through October.
