California overwhelmingly rejected legalized sports betting on Election Day — but the American sports betting industry is still doing great even without the United States’ largest economy contributing.
The industry posted a record $1.68 billion in revenue for Q3 2022 — beating the previous record of $1.62 billion set in Q1 2022 and marking an 80.6% increase year-over-year, according to data from the American Gaming Association.
The seven new betting markets since last September — in particular New York — have been strong contributors to the industry. But even excluding those, national betting revenue increased 33.3% from this time last year.
- Perhaps the strongest reason for the outstanding quarter was a record sportsbook win percentage of 10.5%.
- This is also known as the “hold” percentage, or the sportsbooks’ revenue as a percentage of the overall handle.
- Sportsbook hold was 7.5% in Q2, and 6.0% in Q1 of this year.
The quarter was also spurred on by a strong August: The industry brought in $471.4 million for a 116.2% YoY increase in the usually slow sports month.
But the start of the college football and NFL seasons certainly couldn’t have hurt.
And, of course, volume had something to do with it, as the almost $16 billion sportsbook handle represented a 40.9% increase from the year before.
As the industry enters the final quarter, it’s already set to have a landmark year: Its $4.78 billion revenue through three quarters is a 71.4% YoY increase — and has already surpassed the full-year record of $4.34 billion set in 2021.
