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October wasn’t the best month for New York-based sports teams. The Yankees were bounced from the World Series with ease and Aaron Judge was made to look like an overpaid fool in the process..
Worse, the Jets fired its head coach, Robert Saleh, only a couple of games into the season. Aaron Rodgers was blamed for it, and the team continued to lose despite the coaching change and trading for an overpaid Devante Adams. The other New York NFL team, the Giants? They were somehow worse and cries to bench starting quarterback Daniel Jones only got louder and louder. Both franchises look to be on the verge of a complete reset two months from now.
But despite this, sports are humming in the Empire State. Sports betting, that is. Another record was smashed in New York’s betting scene. Keep reading and we’ll tell you all about it.
New Record Broken In October
Per usual, The New York State Gaming Commission (NYSGC) has published its sports betting numbers for the month prior, October 2024 in this case. The eye-popping number was $2.32 billion. This is a brand-new record for the state’s betting handle, surpassing the $2.11 billion toll from November 2023. That’s a 10-percent jump between the two all-time-best months.
October was a big step up from the month prior, September. The handle was $2.07 billion that prior month so that’s a 12 percent increase month to month.
These numbers are near identical when looking year over year too. You see, October 2023 topped out at $2 billion in the handle. So the year-over-year increase is around 15 percent.
While mobile betting numbers are up, the same can’t be said about commercial casinos in the state, mostly upstate. Revenue here was only $53.7 million, down from last month’s $55.9 million. Land-based casinos historically see a deep in these colder winter months.
The takeaway here? New York has been the biggest legal sports betting market since it launched in early 2022 (Nevada betting is no longer the mecca for sports). These numbers only show things are getting better in the state — not slowing down at all. Imagine what these numbers will look like a year from now. Over $2.5 billion is certainly on the table.
Operators Battle For Revenue Dollars
Despite the record being set in bets wagered, it didn’t carry over into actual revenue — as in the money the operators keep after paying out winning bettors. In October, the state’s revenue was reported at $176.3 million. This is well under the all-time number of $211.7 million in January 2024 (a whole 16 percent off).
A big reason for the low revenue is obvious: bettors were actually winning this past month. The state reported that hold was 7.6% across the marketplace — this is right around the national average, though some states routinely hit double digits here.
As for the operators themselves, FanDuel is still the king of New York. Its handle was slightly above $900 million — inching ever closer to that billion-dollar mark. DraftKings is second with $813 million in October handle. FanDuel’s 8.5 percent hold helped it earn $77.3 million in revenue compared to DraftKings’ 7.2 percent.
The operator making the biggest splash was Fanatics though. They are number three with $178.4 million in betting handle and $12.4 million in revenue. But what stands out about Fanatics is how they’re improving. A year ago this same month, its handle was a meager $27.6 million. So we’re talking about a 5X improvement, which is no small thing. Keep your eyes peeled on Fanatics as they’re establishing themselves as a clear No. 3 over the likes of BetNGM and Caesars.
Speaking of which, those two followed in fourth and fifth place. BetMGM had a higher handle than Caesars at $161.3 million, although a weak 5.89 percent hold meant revenue came at just $9.5 million. Caesars generated revenue of $10.9 million from $155.1 million for a 7.03 percent hold.
How Did ESPN Bet Debut In First Full Month?
The new kid on the block is ESPN Bet. ESPN just entered the New York market at the end of September but October was its first full month in action. The results? It garnered $40.8 million in bets. Of that money, $3.2 million became revenue because of a 7.84 percent hold.
This means ESPN Bet finished seventh in the market. It’s not far off sixth place though, a spot held by Rush Street. Something like this is to be expected though as most bettors are “sticky” and don’t leave the platform they’re already on.
For what it’s worth, PENN CEO Jay Snowden spoke glowingly about the debut — which he’s incentivized to do in order to fire up shareholders. Snowden mentioned deposits were up 100 percent more than in other states they first launched in.
Not only that, but Snowden mentioned ESPN Bet customers in New York were “higher quality.” That’s a codeword for bigger spenders. This is big because PENN went away from Barstool Sports as its license because of this very reason. Turns out the “Stoolies” weren’t very high income — a bad omen for any business. We’ll continue to monitor ESPN’s progress in the state in the months that follow.
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