Nevada Sportsbooks Handle Record $659 Million In Month Of October

October handle was up more than 20% year-over-year in the Silver State
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Brian served as a senior reporter and online content manager for Card Player Magazine for nearly a decade before joining USBets in October 2018. He is currently focused on legal and regulated sports betting and online gaming. He's an avid jiu-jitsu practitioner in his free time.

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Not to be totally outdone by New Jersey last month, the Nevada Gaming Control Board on Tuesday reported that the Silver State sportsbooks handled $659,222,395 in October — their new all-time high.

The handle beat the $614,118,812 in wagers taken during November 2019, the previous single-month record in the state.

The wagers last month were up more than 20% compared to the $543,552,781 handle in October 2019.

The performance was a significant improvement over September, where the $575,069,930 handle was up only 5.2% year-over-year. Nevada’s sports betting handle has now grown year-over-year for three straight months, after falling precipitously in previous months due to the COVID-19 pandemic and its impact on the sports world. While the casino industry recovery is a long ways away, books are back setting new records.

The mobile handle in Nevada last month was $376,842,105, or 57.1% of the total. That was up from nearly 55% in September. It reached 100% when Nevada casinos were closed earlier this year.

The casinos are potentially looking at another shutdown, but for now their capacities have been cut again.

Comparison with NJ, PA

The Garden State set a U.S. sports betting record last month with $803,096,172 in wagers. New Jersey is now the undisputed top sports betting market in the U.S, but Nevada is still a firm second.

Pennsylvania, the nation’s clear-cut No. 3 market, saw $525,802,524 in October handle. The Keystone State is basically where Nevada was a year ago, so it will still take some more time before Pennsylvania eclipses the state that has long held the title of America’s casino gambling capital.

Indiana is the fourth-best sports betting market to report so far in October, with total handle of $230,932,251, although it will likely drop a spot when Illinois’ figures come in.

It’s worth noting that Nevada is the only one of this group of states where you have to visit a casino to complete the process of registering for a mobile sports betting account. You can’t do that remotely in the Silver State, a feature that once allowed Nevada to effectively portray itself as having yet to legalize online gambling, dubbed “interactive gaming,” which later officially came through online poker.

Nevada’s mobile handle share is much lower than the aforementioned three other states. In New Jersey, it was 92.6% in October, and 89.8% and 83.6% for Pennsylvania and Indiana, respectively. While people visiting Nevada typically want to be physically present in a casino, the Silver State has room for further growth by allowing anyone within its borders to download and register for a sportsbook remotely.

None of the massive untapped markets of California, New York, Texas, and Florida have yet legalized online/mobile sports wagering. At some point in likely the not-too-distant future, Nevada, along with New Jersey and Pennsylvania, will slide down the rankings.

Nevada’s October sports betting revenue

The Nevada sportsbooks won $42,388,000 from gamblers last month, down nearly 11.5% year-over-year.

However, the win percentage of 6.4% last month was above the yearly average of about 5.3%.

Nevada books set their single-year record of $329,137,000 in winnings during 2019, a figure they won’t meet this year due to the pandemic. Over the 12 months prior to Nov. 1, 2020, the Nevada books won $227,759,000, down more than 31% compared to the same period a year prior.

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