Nevada continued to set records for sports betting handle every month in 2016, with nearly $460 million wagered in March, the vast majority of that bet on basketball.
The top-line look at March sports betting
Nevada sportsbooks took $459 million in bets in March, according to figures from the Nevada Gaming Control Board released today, the vast majority of that coming on professional and college basketball. March is the biggest month for basketball betting, with the men’s NCAA basketball tournament — aka March Madness — and the NBA regular season winding down.
That’s up about $50 million over March of last year and an increase of $100 million over the handle in March of 2013, according to historical data on sports betting in Nevada
Overall revenue, however, was down in March, year over year. The sportsbooks won just $9.7 million, as they had to pay out about $13 million in old winning football tickets. That’s down significantly from the $18.5 million win for sportsbooks last March.
Basketball is big business in March
Out of the money wagered in March, more than $422 million was bet on hoops. The lion’s share of that came on March Madness:
According to Nevada State Gaming Control, roughly 70% of record $422.2 million bet on basketball in March 2016 was on NCAA tournament games.
— Jason Logan (@CoversJLo) April 28, 2016
The books won $21.5 million on basketball bets, for a hold of 5.1%.
Other sports and parlays accounted for a small percentage of revenue and handle; bettors wagered $32 million on parlays last month.
Records keep falling for sportsbooks
So far, 2016 has been a banner year for money coming into sportsbooks:
- $363 million was wagered in February, a record for that month.
- Nearly $450 million was wagered in January, another record month.
- 2015 was a record-setter as well, with $4.2 billion in handle.
For the first three months of the year, there has been roughly $1.3 billion wagered in Nevada. That’s an increase of about $183 million over the first quarter of 2015.
