Arizona Suffers Drop Below $500 Million in May Sports Betting Handle
After two straight months of lower handles, sportsbooks managed to mitigate their loss in volume thanks to an increase in hold percentage.
Arizona’s May handle fell below $500 million for the first time all year and it was the lowest since August 2022. Luckily for sportsbooks, bettors lost more money that month, which may be connected to the Phoenix Sun’s exit from the NBA playoffs in early May.
The Arizona Department of Gaming (ADG) announced that the state’s legal sports betting market saw $451.7 million in wagers, 15.6% less than April’s $535.7 million.
FanDuel and DraftKings were the only two sportsbooks to exceed $100 million in bets in the Grand Canyon State. FanDuel led all online sports betting sites with $162.3 million in mobile wagers and DraftKings came in second with $130.4 million.
BetMGM was a distant third with $66.8 million, while Caesars came in fourth with $45.5 million, and Barstool Sportsbook’s $12 million rounded out the top five. Desert Diamond Mobile was the only other sportsbook to reach a handle of over $10 million.
While Arizona sports betting has a large pool of operators to choose from, it's not that competitive, as the five most popular books in the state controlled 93% of the market. The other 11 sportsbooks had to fight for the remaining 7%. But that being said, only one sportsbook (Desert Diamond) failed to report a gross profit from May’s bets.
On the retail side, FanDuel’s brick-and-mortar location saw the most action with $2.4 million followed by Caesars' $876,000. BetMGM came in third with $610,000 but failed to make a profit.
Hold percentage keeps revenue high
After two straight months of lower handles, sportsbooks mitigated their loss in volume thanks to an increase in hold percentage. Operators’ hold jumped yet again to 10.7%, well above the 8.9% in April.
That means that despite seeing 84 million fewer dollars, revenue decreased from only $34.3 million to $33.8 million. State coffers saw their cut reduced slightly from $3.4 million to $3.3 million.
