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In April, the sports betting revenue of the state of Michigan experienced a drop despite the NCAA men’s basketball tournament. However, what remained strong in terms of revenues and performance in the state was the online casino gaming sector.
Federally, the United States of America doesn’t see online gambling as illegal. However, each state could have regulations regarding the local operations of any gambling activities. With that said, some states don’t allow and local online gambling regulations. Still, the locals can just play online casino games in India with real money or at any offshore online casinos.
Michigan is one of the few states that have signed online casino gaming into law. It was Governor Whitmer who signed the Lawful Internet Gaming Act into law on December 20, 2019. When this happened, the Michigan Gaming Control Board was then allowed to issue licenses to local gambling operators which offer games like poker, blackjack, slots, card, and many more.
State of Michigan’s Online Sports Betting
Online sports betting operators in the state experienced a month-over-month decrease in sports betting handle and overall gross revenue. For April alone, the sports betting handle totaled 249.9 million USD and this was down 30.5 percent compared to the total betting handle in March which was 359.5 million USD. The revenue they got was also down 36.8 percent with a total of 20.4 million in receipts.
When it comes to which bookie is placed on the top spot, it is FanDuel. This is even if its revenue fell at around 10 percent in April. For this month, FanDuel posted a total of 7 million USD in revenue which covers 35 percent of the betting market.
Meanwhile, BetMGM and DraftKings experienced a bigger revenue drop. BetMGM was only able to post around 63 percent of their March revenue for April. DraftKings was only able to post just 56 percent of their March revenue for April too.
However, despite these numbers, sports betting will likely see an increase in the coming months. This is especially when summer starts and sports come back. Matt Schoch, an analyst from the gaming trade publication PlayMichigan.com talked about how Michigan’s sports betting is doing.
Schoch said, “Sportsbooks are in a generally healthy position heading into the typical summer slowdown, especially considering Michigan’s pro teams have not done much to spur interest.
“Tax revenue is still a concern, and we will likely have to wait until football season to see significant growth in sports betting again. But with the Olympics this year and the NBA Finals later than usual, sportsbooks can look forward to a busier-than-normal summer. Ideally, that will positively affect tax revenue, too,” he added.
Even if there are dips in revenues for the local bookies in April, Michigan still became the quickest state to achieve a total of 1 billion USD in online sports betting revenues. This placed Michigan beside states with huge betting revenues like New Jersey, Nevada, Illinois, and Pennsylvania.
Michigan’s Online Casino Market
Meanwhile, many are expecting to see BetMGM lead the betting market because of how well its online casinos are also doing. The company was able to increase its market share by over 7 percent in March and in April, its gross revenue was able to top 30 million USD. This makes them have close to 40 percent of the overall online casino market in the state.
Golden Nugget also reported an increase in revenue in April. It was able to earn 3.9 million USD which is 14 percent bigger than what they made in March. However, with that amount, that only represents around 4 percent of the overall online casino market in the state.
Other operators like FanDuel and DraftKings each have at least 16 percent of the total market. However, both experienced a dip in revenues that are around 15.5 million USD each.
Overall, the online casino industry in Michigan only slightly dipped in April with 94.9 million in gross receipts. This wasn’t a bad dip as in March, the total gross revenue was at 95.1 million USD. Based on the April gain, the state is making 3.16 million USD per day in online casino revenues.
PlayMichigan.com’s analyst, Jessica Welman said that sports betting revenue in the state may take a while to reach what online casinos are already making. She also said, “In addition, online casinos aren’t susceptible to the same seasonal ebbs and flows like sports betting. That said, $1 billion in less than four months of online sports betting is no minor feat either.”
