Las Vegas Raking Record Money Despite Competition

Even with legalized sports betting sprouting across the United States and New Jersey having blossomed beyond burgeoning market status, there appears to be plenty of money left for Las Vegas.

In its monthly report released on Tuesday, the Nevada Gaming Control Board announced an all-time record for sports pool win ($56.3 million) and volume ( $571.0 million) in September.

The record win figure surpassed September, 2012 ($53.3 billion), again reinforcing the impact of a full month of National Football League betting. According to the Nevada report, approximately $389 million was wagered on the NFL and college football in the state in September.

The volume figure bested the October, 2017 mark of $565 million.

Nevada Holding Off New Competitors For Now

Since the overturning of the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act of 1992 in May, sports betting has become legal and available in five more states: Delaware, Mississippi, New Jersey, New Mexico and West Virginia.

New York, Pennsylvania and Rhode Island have legalized it, but not yet waded through regulations to allow sportsbooks to begin accepting wagers in their states. Momentum is increasing in Indiana, Colorado and the District of Columbia and industry experts believe that the number of states with legal sports wagering could reach double digits in year.

And there could be more surprise additions.

Exploitable contract language from a deal forged in the 1990s allowed the Pueblo of Santa Ana tribe to commence sports betting at its casino just north of Albuquerque two weeks ago, opening a market in the west that has been long the sole province of Las Vegas’s gambling industry.

New Jersey Giving, Not Taking Away?

New Jersey’s rapid success – the state board of gaming enforcement reported $24 million won on $183.9 in sports bets in September - appeared to offer a challenge to Las Vegas’ primacy. Mobile betting has spurred the state’s quick acclimation to sports betting and set it up as a Vegas equivalent bettors could hold in the palm of their hands.

How New Jersey impacts Las Vegas’s gaming and tourism industries remains to be seen long-term, but for now, it appears to appears to be helping mainstream the sports betting as a pastime. And in the process helping the established market.

“The expansion of sports wagering, we believe could have positive effect on our business with increased acceptance and exposure,” NGCB senior research analyst Michael Lawton told Gambling.com. “It is very early, however, this month would support that theory.”

Nevada’s total win, or the amount of revenue derived from all wagering, was $992.2 million, a 1.26-percent increase from the same period in 2017. Revenue was down 5.74-percent from a year ago.

Nevada Jostles for Position in Developing Market

Nevada’s place in the new sports betting ecosystem appeared challenged by broader legal availability and New Jersey’s debut in particular, especially when Las Vegas gambling stakeholders asked the gaming commission recently to discuss the possibility of accepting bets from outside the state.

The proposal, even if approved by multiple layers of jurisdiction in Nevada, would require a change in federal law, according to multiple attorneys contacted by Gambling.com who believe it is prohibited by the Interstate Wire Act of 1961.

But Chris Krafcik, managing director of political and regulatory markets at Eilers & Krejcik Gaming, LLC told Bloomberg Tax that the gaming industry “will find ways to thrive even within the constraints of the Wire Act,” and that states are beginning “to lay the legal groundwork” for interstate wagering.