- Wyoming’s sportsbooks saw $6.2 million in handle in their first month of operation.
- Due to promotions, the sportsbooks claim to have lost more than $100,000 in that month.
- They expect revenue to balance out once the major promotional launch deals are done.
CHEYENNE, Wyo. - Wyoming’s sports betting is off to a fairly slow start according to the first revenue numbers.
$6.2 million was wagered in September, but there was so little wagered, and so many promotions offered, that the state’s revenue share was nothing. That $6.2 million in handle resulted in gross revenue of $954,416, but Wyoming’s sportsbooks, DraftKings and BetMGM, had offered a large volume of promotions to get players to sign up.
This meant that the net profit on the month was actually negative, as the two sportsbooks combined to lose $123,969.
Wyoming does not tax promotions, and this could come back to bite them in the future, as those promotions seem to have been the major offset that the sportsbooks cited in terms of why there was no revenue.
Whether or not this was creative accounting on the part of the sportsbooks or simply a quirk of the promotional volume offered in opening months is unclear, although both the operators and the state seem to be chalking it up to the latter.
“The operators said this is kind of a typical thing for the first month, and I’m not surprised,” said David Carpenter, project manager of sports wagering for the Wyoming Gaming Commission.
The Future Of Wyoming Sports Betting
The only two sportsbooks open are DraftKings and BetMGM, but FanDuel, PointsBet and Barstool Sportsbook are planning to open as well. There has been no word on if the poor first-month online gambling numbers for BetMGM and DraftKings will influence the timeframe in which the other sportsbooks will open.
Football was the major driver of the action that the sportsbooks did see, with more than half of the money wagered in the state being wagered on football.
The next closest sport was baseball, which saw more than three times less volume than football, which is truly king in Wyoming.