No professional football and no college basketball tournaments cooled sports betting in Indiana in April.
PlayIndiana.com, citing state gaming data, reported wagering for April totaled $236.4 million, which was down 25.4% from $316.7 million in March and was the lowest monthly handle since October, when sportsbooks reported $230.9 million in wagers.
PlayIndiana.com analysts expected the drop and expect wagering to remain flat until the fall college and pro football seasons begin.
“Even a high volume of regular season baseball and NBA basketball games can’t make up for a calendar devoid of NFL and college football games, or a major betting event like the NCAA Tournament,” said Jessica Welman, lead analyst at PlayIndiana.com. “Because the pandemic turned the 2020 sports schedule on its head, Indiana hasn’t really experienced a full year of normal sports betting activity (but) there are normal seasonal ebbs and flows in sports betting, and this is the start of what is historically the slowest period of every year.”
April’s bets produced $20.1 million in adjusted gross revenue, down 23.8% from $26.4 million in March. That yielded $1.9 million in state taxes.
Indiana sportsbooks have already accepted $1.2 billion in bets through the first four months of 2021. Even with a month-over-month decline in April, this year stands in stark contrast to 2020.
In what was the low point of the year, online sportsbooks took in $26.3 million in wagers in April 2020, while retail outlets were completely shuttered as the sports world went quiet.
“This is the first time we get to see how Indiana will perform during the spring and summer months, and through one month Indiana is meeting expectations,” said Nicole Russo, analyst for PlayIndiana.com. “With the Olympics ahead and the NBA playoffs pushed back a month, this could actually be a better summer than in most years (and) Indiana’s sportsbooks are well-positioned to take advantage.”
Online betting accounted for 88.4%, or $209.1 million, of the state’s handle, an increase from 88.1% in March. Retail sportsbooks generated the remaining $27.3 million in wagers, down from $37.5 million in March.
DraftKings topped all online operators with $79.3 million in online bets, down from $111.2 million in March. That produced $6.1 million in gross receipts, down from $8.5 million in March.
FanDuel was second with $67.1 million in bets, down from $92.4 million in March. That produced $5.7 million in gross receipts, down from $6.8 million.
