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Early June reports show expected dip in betting handle, but numbers are up from 2023
The summer is slow for sportsbooks, but early June reports show a significant increase from June 2023.
As we settle into the summer months, you’ll probably notice that the sports world takes a bit of a break as well. We start the year off in January with the NFL playoffs and college football bowl games. That leads to the biggest sports betting event of the year, the Super Bowl. A few weeks later, we get another massive betting boost when the college basketball tournament comes along. Once that wraps up, the NBA and NHL seasons are getting ready for postseason action.
Once both of those seasons are completed in early June, things quiet down. The only major sport being played is baseball, and regular season baseball isn’t nearly the betting event that an NFL or NBA game is. Other sports like tennis, golf and the WNBA have relatively small betting audiences. There’s a bit of a boost this year with the EURO and Copa America soccer tournaments, but betting handles on those events are nothing to write home about either. Sportsbooks are aware of this transition and plan for the slow part of the year accordingly.
Operators all know that people will be back and betting in a few months, once football season kicks off, the MLB gets into its postseason, and the hockey and basketball seasons restart. For that reason, it’s more telling to look at the year-to-year trend rather than the month-to-month trend. Are more people betting in June 2024 than June 2023? That can be measured as progress.
Early reporting states all showing a downward trend compared to May
Not every state is on the same schedule when it comes to reporting sports betting handles and revenues. In some states, the figures aren’t released until the end of the following month.
While we don’t yet have the entire picture for June, multiple states have reported their figures for the month already, and we have more than enough information to identify a clear trend; a decrease in volume compared to May.
| State | May 2024 Handle | June 2024 Handle | Decrease |
|---|---|---|---|
| Maryland | $431.8 million | $384.7 million | -10.9% |
| New York | $1.97 billion | $1.47 billion | -25.4% |
| North Carolina | $525.5 million | $398.3 million | -24.2% |
| Iowa | $182.4 million | $146.6 million | -19.6% |
| Tennessee | $381.8 million | $344.8 million | -9.7% |
As seen in the chart above, it’s a pretty consistent downward trend. For Maryland, New York, Iowa and Tennessee, these are the lowest monthly betting handles posted since August of 2023. For North Carolina, June was the first time the state failed to achieve at least $500 million in betting handle since it first launched sports betting in March.
Year-over-year numbers are more promising
As we mentioned earlier, sportsbooks are prepared for the summer months to be slow. One metric that operators do care about, however, is the year-to-year comparison. June is known to be a slow month, but how does this June compare to last June? Operators want to see growth.
From that point of view, the June results we’ve seen posted so far have been favorable, and indicate a positive year-over-year trend.
| State | June 2023 Handle | June 2024 Handle | Increase |
|---|---|---|---|
| Maryland | $254.5 million | $384.7 million | +51.2% |
| New York | $1.17 billion | $1.47 billion | +25.6% |
| Iowa | $115.6 million | $146.6 million | +26.8% |
| Tennessee | $230.3 million | $344.8 million | +49.7% |
When you’re comparing year-over-year, it’s more of an apples to apples comparison. How does this year’s slow period compare to last year’s slow period? Across the board, we’ve seen a consistent increase. States like Maryland and Tennessee have increased their betting handles by 50%, while New York and Iowa are chugging along steadily with increases over 25%.
The aforementioned soccer tournaments, the Euro and the Copa America, could be responsible for some of this year-over-year growth for the month of June, and so could the big increase in WNBA betting thanks to Caitlin Clark. We’ll get a much better picture of the overall summer growth once the numbers for July and August are reported, but the early numbers are certainly positive.
Sportsbooks will endure the slow summer months and prepare for the football season. If these year-over-year numbers from June are any indication, Sportsbooks could see some massive numbers in the fall.
