Maryland Lottery and Gaming released its November 2022 Maryland sports betting revenue report, and this was the first month to include online betting. In the nine days that mobile sportsbooks were accessible in Maryland, a total of $219,071,373.52 was wagered. Maryland mobile sportsbooks have already proven to be a major asset to the Old Line State.
Maryland Online Apps Dominate
Despite only being active for nine days in November, mobile sportsbooks in Maryland saw $186,084,495.57 in bets. This made up 84.9% of the total market. With retail having multiple weeks of head start, it is impressive to see how quickly mobile betting managed to dominate Maryland.
The report also revealed that sportsbooks saw a 14% hold rate for November. This resulted in $33,607,082.63 in sports betting revenue and $704,727.57 in taxes to the state. This brings the state’s total to $3,246,694.99 in taxes year to date.
Online sports betting in Maryland has already shown its massive benefit to the gaming market. It will be interesting to see just how dominant Maryland will be with a full month of sports betting reported with online betting, once December numbers become available.
Local Officials Celebrate The Market
Maryland locals embracing sports betting to this degree is a major win for the market. The long journey to launch mobile and online sports betting in the Old Line State has already been proven fruitful. Officials expect online sports betting to continue to dominate going forward. It should produce consistently high revenue and betting handle numbers.
“We expect mobile sportsbook operators to continue to offer a lot of promotional wagers in the coming months as they venture into a new market and work to attract customers. There was tremendous pent up demand, and a lot of people are utilizing promotional offers from multiple operators simultaneously. But as many of the operators have acknowledged, this level of promotional play is not sustainable, and based on our regulations, it will be curtailed over time.”
Maryland Lottery and Gaming Director John Martin
Heavy Promotional Spending In Early Days
In an official press release, Maryland Lottery officials broke down the specific numbers for how the market fared. Thus far, online sports betting has unsurprisingly been influenced heavily by promotional spending of local sportsbooks.
Handle (Amount players wagered, including promotional wagers provided to players by sportsbooks)
- Retail: $32,986,878
- Mobile: $186,084,496 (includes $63,835,319 in mobile promotional wagers)
- Combined: $219,071,374
Prizes (Winnings paid to players)
- Retail: $28,234,802
- Mobile: $160,216,032
- Combined: $188,450,835
Hold (Handle less prizes paid)
- Retail: $4,752,076 (14.4%)
- Mobile: $25,868,463 (13.9%)
- Combined: $30,620,539 (14.0%)
Taxable Win (Amount remaining after paying winners and deducting promotional play and other amounts)
- Retail: $4,669,773
- Mobile: (-$38,276,855)
- Combined: (-$33,607,083)
Sports Wagering Tax (15% of the taxable win)
- Retail: $700,466
- Mobile: $4,262
- Combined: $704,728
Since the inception of Maryland’s sports wagering program in December 2021:
· Cumulative contribution to the Blueprint for Maryland’s Future Fund: $6,129,760
· Cumulative expired prizes contributed to the Problem Gambling Fund: $1,043,521
For the first fiscal year of the online sports betting market, Maryland will place no limitations on total taxable promotional play. This will be capped at 20% after the first fiscal year. This is in an effort for the state to maximize Maryland sports betting revenue from the budding market.
