What Can We Learn From Nevada Online Sports Betting Numbers?
Nevada’s revenue report had extra significance in January. For the first time, the Nevada Gaming Control Board provided a breakdown of land-based and online sports betting in the state.
The result was about a 50-50 split between the two betting channels. That lines up with what analysts have heard through backchannel chatter for several years.
The state’s decision to break out online handle and revenue provides many insights into the Nevada sports betting market, and the opportunity to analyze some of the state’s policies.
Inside the Nevada Sports Betting Numbers
Nevada operators racked up $20 million in sports betting revenue, with 56% ($11.2 million) coming from online. Handle came in at just over $500 million, with just under half that amount generated online.
For comparison, online sports betting in New Jersey accounts for 85-90% of all bets. The story is similar in Pennsylvania.
That’s led to plenty of commentary about Nevada’s in-person mobile registration requirement. For anyone unfamiliar, Nevada requires bettors to register their online accounts in-person at a casino, while New Jersey online sportsbooks and Pennsylvania online sportsbooks allow customers to register remotely.
Is In-Person Registration to Blame?
In-person registration will certainly tamp down online performance, but as I’ll explain in the next section, the overall impact will vary by market.
And as Chris Krafcik noted on Twitter, Nevada is unique as a destination sports betting market. People go there specifically for the experience of hanging out in one of the city’s many sportsbooks. They’re not there to sit in their hotel rooms and place bets.
As Krafcik notes, Nevada is going to have a larger percentage of retail sports betting for precisely that reason. People are there to bet in-person.
But there’s also a secondary reason in-person registration is less of a negative impact in Nevada, and that has to do with the location of casinos vis-à-vis the state’s population centers.
The Uniqueness of Nevada
Nevada is a large state, but most of it is only sparsely populated desert and mountains. The Silver State’s casinos are concentrated in very small geographic areas, and those areas happen to be where the bulk of Nevada’s population resides.
75% of Nevada’s population resides in Clark County, and roughly another 10% lives in Reno. Residents in either area have a multitude of casinos in their backyard, so the only inconvenience for locals is fighting Strip traffic or leaving one parking garage to go to another nearby parking garage.
Even locals that avoid The Strip and wouldn’t make a trip there solely to register an online account will find themselves on The Strip here and there. When they’re out for dinner, a show, or meeting up with friends in town, they can make a mental note to register an account at that time.
The argument against in-person registration is the inconvenience of it, and in most locations, that would be true. In Nevada, it has a kernel of truth.
Yes, mobile registration is far more convenient and would likely result in Nevada locals possessing more betting accounts, but it’s not the same type of hindrance it would be in a state like Pennsylvania.
In Pennsylvania, a sports bettor may need to make a multi-hour drive to reach a single casino property. If the state required in-person registration, opening four or five online accounts would likely require a seven-day vacation to travel across the state.
And Nevada’s concentration of casinos also lessens the impact of in-person registration on visitors.
Most visitors to Nevada (estimated at 56 million annually) stay at a casino or can see a casino from their hotel window. And what do visitors do when they’re in Las Vegas? They tend to gamble or casino hop. So, anyone visiting Las Vegas interested in mobile betting is only mildly inconvenienced- perhaps they want to open five accounts to get the best line, but two of the operators they want to open an account with are on the other side of The Strip or in Summerlin.
Steve Ruddock is the content director for BettingUSA and the Editor-in-Chief of Gaming Law Review.
Steve has covered the legal and legislative developments in the US gambling sector for more than a decade for online and print publications.
