SugarHouse Absolutely Dominates PA Betting Market in July
SugarHouse Sportsbook absolutely dominated the PA online sports betting market in July. The Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board released their monthly sports wagering report today and the numbers put up by SugarHouse’s online sportsbook are staggering.
SugarHouse took in over $22 million in bets (handle) in July, absolutely crushing all competition.
The next closest, in fact, was their sister site Bet Rivers, which took in almost $10 million in bets online. Compare that to the other competition that was live for the entire month, Parx– they only took in $3.6 million in bets. SugarHouse beat Parx by almost 7x in handle.
Massive handle
Here’s the total of online bets:
- SugarHouse: $22,162,651
- Rivers: $9,927,161
- Parx: $3,648,995
- Valley Forge (FanDuel): $3,259,840
This is not all revenue, of course.
Handle is the amount of money taken in and also includes bets on futures, which might not be paid out for some time.
Revenue is the sportsbook’s take after bets are settled.
SugarHouse still led there by a wide margin. They took in $1,526,823 in revenue for July, followed by Rivers at $773k, and then Parx at $333k.
What about FanDuel?
Well, they are tough to measure because they were only live for about a week at the end of July. But their numbers are quite impressive. FanDuel Sportsbook PA took in $3.2 million in bets, good for $254k in revenue. That run rate doesn’t quite get them up to SugarHouse, which was taking in about $700k per day on average, but still impressive given that it was a very soft launch for a few days. Again, at the end of July.
FanDuel will likely begin to pace, if not beat SugarHouse, for the month of August, just anecdotally based on some of the traffic and interest we’ve seen regarding FanDuel.
But SugarHouse’s handle is pretty staggering here and speaks to just the absolute potential for the PA betting market.
Market size
While things have launched in fits and starts and with some mobile app issues, many pundits have downplayed PA’s potential because of the tax environment, regulatory structure, and some operators’ unwillingness to work here.
But all along we’ve felt that with two major sports cities and a major college football town, PA could be one of the top five biggest betting markets in the country.
It’s worth noting that SugarHouse had an infrastructure in place from New Jersey and was likely able to parlay this into effectively marketing and registering players in Pennsylvania. And though they don’t yet have an iOS app, they were the first to be available on iOS, which happened in mid-July. SugarHouse also launched their online casino, which helps bring people in for sports betting.
Regardless, big win for SugarHouse.