Delaware Sports Betting Ends 2024 With Miracle Loss

If you’ve read this site enough, you know we’re constantly reporting blowout numbers for the legal sports betting industry. This has become normalized from state to state, year to year. However, this is a rare article that features the opposite — a big ‘L. Keep reading and we’ll tell you about the surprising case of Delaware sports betting in December.

How Delaware Lost Money On Betting

December was a huge month for sports betting with NFL and NCAAF winding down, plus a heavy dose of NBA, NHL, and international soccer. Across the country, many states set all-time betting records during the month. But in Delaware, they reported a month of a net loss. Yes, you read that correctly.

The Delaware Lottery — which operates the state’s betting industry — posted December data the other day. For December, they reported a loss of $174,859. We’ve been writing these articles for a long time, and we honestly can’t remember a month where a state reported losses. Zero!

But let’s dig deeper into the numbers. Bettors in Delaware spent $28.4 million in wagers during December. Funnily enough, that’s actually an all-time monthly record for the state. Compared to this same period last year, that’s a monstrous 221.9 percent jump too (more on why this matters later on).

But here’s the reason for the monthly loss: Delaware bettors ate the bookie’s lunch. They collected $27.9 in winnings off bets made. Once you factor in the money that needs to be paid out to casinos’ commissions and vendor fees, that’s how you end up operating in the red.

One takeaway from December is not necessarily that Delaware bettors are excellent sports forecasters — this was probably a fluke performance. But BetRivers, which has a monopoly on the state’s betting division, could drastically improve its hold percentage. There’s an art to it, just ask FanDuel, which has mastered it to become the most profitable sports betting app around. We’re not going to pretend to know all of FanDuel’s secrets, but it definitely involves promoting parlays heavily, which is where bookmakers make most of their money from. That leads us to our next section.

BetRivers Needs More Parlays

An interesting article just hit the Wall Street Journal appropriately headlined “America Has Fallen in Love With Long-Shot Sports Bets.” The article detailed just how profitable parlay betting is to operators — not the players themselves.

Here’s some figures detailed in the WSJ article: parlays accounted for 27 percent of all money wagered on sports in Illinois, New Jersey, and Colorado — states that track bet types. But get this, in those same states, parlays made up 56 percent of revenue. This is a huge discrepancy that BetRivers should be studying if they want to improve profit margins in Delaware and other states they operate in.

BetRivers has done a fine job since becoming the state’s official betting partner — Delaware only allows one license in the state. They took over the deal from 888 in late 2023 before fully launching a year ago in January 2024. Bet Rivers is available in app form and inside the state’s three casinos (Delaware Park, Bally’s Dover, and Harrington Raceway & Casino).

Now that 2024 is done, we can evaluate how BetRivers did in year one. The result? Really good. During the calendar year, the sportsbook took $216.2 million in sports bets — up 231 percent year-over-year. Gross gaming revenue also hit $24.9 million (a 71.2 percent improvement). Delaware itself made $8.6 million in tax revenue for themselves, which was up 15 percent.

See? BetRivers did more good than bad. Still, there’s room for improvement as December data showed. If we were them, we’d look deeply into parlays as the primary way to outperform 2025.

Will BetRivers Get Any New Competition?

As mentioned, Delaware sports betting (and casino) is monopolized by BetRivers. The casino side is even more profitable than sports. Whereas sports was a loss leader for the operator this past December, the casino revenues were all time highs. During the month, BetRivers had a casino win of $7.7 million (online only).

This trend held all of 2024 though. BetRivers reported $62.6 in gross revenue on the online gaming side year-round. More impressive than that, the business contributed $37.3 million in tax receipts for the state.

As good as BetRivers has done since taking over from 888, it’s no guarantee their monopoly will be held in check. Let’s not forget about HB 365, a bill that was floated around in 2024. The bill wanted to give out two “skins” (licenses essentially) for each of the three casinos in the state (so six extra skins in total). The proposal didn’t pass, but still, it garnered some level of attention.

For what it’s worth, the new legislative year began January 14. It runs until June 30, which is longer than most other states. If there’s going to be a new proposal to add competition to BetRivers, it’ll likely happen soon.

The good news is BetRivers now has a full year of data that proves their competence in the market — this wasn’t the case a year ago when they were brand new and the proposal was being kicked around. December’s sports loss was an anomaly in an otherwise killer year, which should allow BetRivers execs to sleep well at night knowing they have this monopoly on lockdown.