Parlays Power New Jersey Sportsbooks To Another 10% Hold
The beatings will continue until morale performance improves.
New Jersey sportsbooks posted a double-digit hold for the third straight month in July, with the Division of Gaming Enforcement reporting a near-10.4% overall win rate thanks to a historic rout in parlay betting.
There have only been seven occasions in 62 months of sports wagering in New Jersey — including the last three — when the house crafted a 10% or higher hold. Operators claimed close to $39.3 million of their $61 million in adjusted gross revenue via parlays in July, setting a monthly all-time hold of an eye-watering 29.2% for the wager type.
The previous high was 26.9% in November 2021, though it should be noted that parlay handle in that football month was significantly higher at $262.8 million. Operators accepted $134.5 million worth of parlay wagers in July, which accounted for 22.9% of the overall $587 million handle.
Total handle was up 10.4% over July 2022, with the 71.4% bump in parlay winnings sending year-over-year revenue in July up 55.5%. Despite overall year-to-date handle of $5.7 billion being down being almost 9%, operator revenue in 2023 has surged 41.9% to $501.8 million compared to the first seven months of last year. The state collected $7.7 million in tax receipts in July, and the $56.5 million accrued for the year is more than $10.8 million ahead of last year’s pace.
Parlays continue to be a winner for the house
July marked the fourth consecutive month operators posted a hold of at least 20% on parlay wagers, matching the longest run in state history established last August to November. But both the floor and the ceiling of the 2022 streak were much lower, as the holds then ranged from 20.6% to 22.7%. In contrast, the floor of the current stretch is just shy of 22% and peaks at the new all-time record just set.
It then makes sense that while year-to-date parlay handle of $1.4 billion is up only 5.3% compared to 2022, revenue has surged 35.9% to $291.8 million in that same stretch. The 2023 hold is 3.3 percentage points higher at 24.3%.
Books make gains in single-event betting, too
The outsized attention given to parlay wagering as it has risen in popularity has obscured the fact — at least in New Jersey — that the public is also not faring well in single-event wagering when comparing the first seven months of this year to last year. Here, the differences in handle and revenue are far more pronounced — 2023 handle in single-event betting is down 12.8% to $4.3 billion, but sportsbook revenue has spiked 51.1% to $210 million.
That rise in revenue comes with sport-specific holds that are up across the board compared to 2022, yet also shy of the 7% industry standard. Holds have been up nearly four full percentage points in football at just over 6%; up 2.1 percentage points in basketball (3.8%); up more than 2.3 percentage points in baseball (5.9%); and up nearly 1.9 percentage points in the catch-all “other” category (6.1%) of golf, hockey, tennis, soccer, boxing, MMA, and motorsports.
Though July marked the first time the single-event wagering monthly hold was lower in 2023 than 2022, the year-to-date win rate in 2023 of 4.8% is still more than two percentage points higher versus last year.
BetMGM picks up the pace in July
Since the New Jersey does not provide handle and revenue figures for each operator and combines revenue total by license-holder venue, it is impossible to tell which sportsbook had the best month. The Meadowlands Racetrack, the mobile tether of FanDuel, PointsBet, and Superbook, paced all venues for July revenue with just over $24 million. That was 4.7% higher than July 2022 but also down 3.8% from June.
Resorts Digital, home to DraftKings, its own app, and the soon-to-be shutteredFOX Bet, claimed runner-up status with nearly $19 million. That was more than double the $8.5 million in revenue the previous July, but its drop from June was more pronounced with a 25.2% decline.
BetMGM and the Borgata, though, bucked the trend of month-over-month declines with a 62.8% jump to close to $5.9 million. It can be assumed the bulk of the revenue came from BetMGM, while the year-over-year increase was a more modest 10.9%
Tipico had a near four-fold increase in revenue compared to June at more than $237,000, while Golden Nugget and Betway‘s combined haul of over $167,000 was more than double the June revenue. It was a rough month for the state’s two exchange platforms, as Prophet Exchange finished with a loss of more than $36,000 and Sporttrade’s month-over-month revenue plunged more than 85% to slightly above $36,000.
