The volume of legal online sports betting during the opening weekend of the NFL season more than doubled from last season, a trend that portends grim days lay ahead for illegal bookies, data from GeoComply Solutions show.
With more US states authorizing legal online sports betting, tens of millions of people now have the option to bet legally at one of several regulated sportsbooks, according to GeoComply, which provides geolocation security, fraud prevention and compliance services for nearly all of the US online sports betting market.
Last week’s start to the NFL season also seems to be driving the change. According to GeoComply, the four-day period that covered nearly all of the action in Week 1 set a company record for geolocation transactions.
Specifically, GeoComply reported 58.2 million geolocation transactions across the 18 states and the District of Columbia—jurisdictions where online sports betting is legal—from Thursday, September 9, through 7 pm ET on Sunday, September 12.
By comparison, GeoComply processed 25.8 million transactions during the same period of the 2020 NFL season. That represents an increase of 126%.
“Preparing for this NFL season has been a process that began before the end of last season,” said Lindsay Slader, managing director of gaming for GeoComply. “We expected high volumes, but what we have seen has surprised us, nonetheless. The level of demand across new markets, such as Arizona, indicates that consumers have long waited for the option to legally place a sports bet.”
Slader added that GeoComply’s findings “[tell] a remarkable story about the growth of the industry in a short period of time. This success is a credit to all our clients and state regulators, who have worked tirelessly to prepare for the start of the new NFL season.”
According to GeoComply, New Jersey led all states with 12.5 million total sports betting transactions during the NFL’s opening weekend and 21.4% of total transaction volume. Pennsylvania came in second at 11.5 million transactions and 19.8% of the volume, followed by Michigan at 7.5 million and 12.9%. Arizona and Illinois rounded out the top five, at 6.1 million (10.4%) and 4.8 million (8.2%) transactions, respectively.
Other states where volume totals were reported included Virginia (6.0%), Indiana (5.5%), Tennessee (5.2%), Colorado (3.7%) and Iowa (3.7%).
Last year, New Jersey recorded 9 million in total sports betting transactions during 2020’s opening weekend, followed again by Pennsylvania, which saw 7.9 million in transactions. Illinois, Indiana and Colorado were the next three, at 3.3 million, 2.5 million and 1.6 million, respectively.
A sports betting boom in Arizona
Despite launching on the first day of the new NFL season, Arizona surged to the fourth-highest state for transactions after more than 271,000 accounts were created since last Thursday.
“Arizona is showing that there is pent up demand for sports betting in the western part of the US,” Slader said. “We haven’t seen anything quite like it.”
Legislation to legalize retail and online sports betting was passed by the state legislature and signed by Republican Gov. Doug Ducey into law on April 15. Legalized sports betting began in the state on September 9 to coincide with the NFL’s opening weekend.
Sportsbooks that have launched, or are in the process of launching, in the Grand Canyon State include Bally Bet, Barstool, Betfred, BetMGM, BetRivers, Caesars, DraftKings, FanDuel, Golden Nugget, PointsBet, TwinSpires, Unibet and WynnBET.
GeoComply’s software is installed on more than 400 million devices worldwide, and the company analyzes more than 3 billion transactions annually. In a statement, the company said it plans to release its data periodically throughout the 2021 and 2022 sports calendars “to help inform insight and discussions about the US sports betting industry.”
GeoComply is headquartered in Vancouver, Canada, and has offices in Las Vegas, Ukraine and Vietnam.
