Nevada sportsbook handle hits $458.6m in February

The Nevada Gaming Control Board has reported an 11.5% year-on-year rise in sports betting handle for February, though the state also saw gaming revenue across all verticals decline marginally for the month.

The state’s regulated gambling market saw total revenue for February decline 0.6% to $1.01bn. A marginal increase in slot revenue, up 0.5% to $608.3m, was offset by a decline in table, counter and card games (including sports betting), which were down 2.21% year-on-year to $403.2m.

For the sports betting vertical, February win soared 235.1% to $35.8m (£27.5m/€31.9m), with operator win percentage for the month standing at 7.8%. This suggests that total amounts wagered reached $458.6m, a significant improvement on February 2018’s $411.2m handle and the state’s highest February total to date.

The majority of sports betting revenue came from basketball, which accounted for $19.9m (55.5%) of the monthly total.

Betting on football, meanwhile, generated revenue of $11.0m. This was a significant drop from the previous year, though a win percentage of 7.7% suggested that punters staked $142.9m on the sport in February. Nevada’s sportsbooks made a $267,000 loss on baseball during the month, while parlay cards accounted for $516,000 of total revenue.

A further $3.1m was generated from pari-mutuel betting on horse racing, while betting on other sports and events generated revenue of $4.7m.

Looking at the contributions from the state’s different regions, a 0.44% increase in revenue from Clark County to $892.7m helped offset declines from all other counties in what is a traditionally slow month for Nevada’s gambling market.

Despite Clark County’s year-on-year growth, the Las Vegas Strip saw revenue fall 1.95% to $591.7m, though gambling revenue was up 9.0% year-on-year in Downtown Las Vegas to $58.0m, and up 5.3% in North Las Vegas to $24.1m.