The U.S. director of a global technology provider for sportsbooks said the launch of online and mobile wagering in Pennsylvania is off to a fast start. He expects the state within a year to surpass New Jersey as the nation’s sports gambling leader.
There are now four mobile betting options in Pennsylvania with the launch this week of FanDuel at Valley Forge Casino. Play SugarHouse launched May 28th and Play Rivers and Parx Casino launched on June 27th.
Max Bichsel, U.S. director for Kambi, a technology provider for Parx and Rush Street Gaming, which operates SugarHouse and Rivers, said the properties saw the amount wagered online “grow exponentially” over the last three to four weeks in Pennsylvania. He said that number gives an indication of what’s to come during football season in the fall.
Bichsel spoke about the early returns on sports betting during the final panel session and follow up interview at the Casino Marketing & Technology Conference at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas.
“You take the fifth largest state and allow them to bet online and it becomes a game changer in some respect,” Bichsel said. “It’s a significant multiple of what we see at retail. It’s very exciting. The size of the market is dramatically larger than what some have expected.”
It has a way to go, however, as numbers released this week showed $46.3 million in sports betting wagers in Pennsylvania in June, the best month the state has seen since initial bets were taken in November. Some 40 percent of the June handle or $19.3 million came from online. New Jersey had $318.9 million in total sports bets in May, just beating the $317.4 million wagered on sports in Nevada.
New Jersey launched sports betting in June 2018, a month after the U.S. Supreme Court struck down a federal ban on single-game sports wagers outside of Nevada.
In June, New Jersey had $46.5 million in sports betting handle at the retail level and $226.7 million in handle from online. That’s down from $263.5 million in online handle and $55.3 million at the retail level.
Kambi works with one land-based casino and four online sports book operators in New Jersey.
“There’s been Pennsylvania money flowing into New Jersey and that money will dry up and stay within the confines of the Commonwealth,” Bichsel said. “I expect it to be larger in handle than New Jersey because it’s a bigger state and because they have more sports teams and universities. New Jersey has been live for more than a year now, and if you give Pennsylvania a year, as well, I think the numbers will be larger. It’s a formidable state for sure and largest to offer online sports betting. What will be impactful are September, October and November numbers because you can compare New Jersey and Pennsylvania apples to apples.”
Bichsel said it’s hard to overestimate the amount of passion sports generates with people, and online betting offerings take it to another level and will continue to do so.
“It’s significantly different than betting on just a few types of markets in sports,” Bichsel said. “It’s betting on the next pitch and next pass in football and it’s much more of a minute-by-minute, second-by-second business, and that adoption by consumers has arguably been greater than we initially expected.”
Bichsel said mobile sports betting will be a “driving force for legislation and regulation” in Pennsylvania for the next several years as regulators “see how much money is actually coming in and that the size of the market is dramatically larger than what some have expected.”
