January proved to be another lucrative month for Nevada sportsbooks, as they reported more than $1 billion in handle for the fourth straight month.
January’s total handle set a new record with $1.109 billion bet in Nevada during the month. That topped the old record of $1.1 billion set in October 2021. The handle was also up 8.3 percent when compared for December and up an astounding 71.6 percent from January 2021. At least part of that jump in handle can be attributed to an extra week being added to the NFL regular season this year.
The hold from January’s record handle came in at 4.5 percent which resulted in $50 million in revenue for sportsbooks. It also resulted in a $3.4 million tax bill.
While the NFL regular season was a week longer the most popular bet for Nevada sports bettors in January was basketball. It led the way with $504.9 million in betting handle during the month. Basketball bets ended up with a low 2.24 percent hold which resulted in $11.3 million in revenue.
Following basketball was football with $454 million in handle. Football betting had a much higher 8.06 percent hold and $36.6 million in revenue. Rounding out the Top 3 in hold was hockey betting with $75.3 million. Sportsbooks went into the red on hockey betting in January was they had a negative 0.19 percent hold, which resulted in a loss of $143,000.
As usual, mobile betting dominated in January with 70.9 percent of all bets made online. The total of online bets was $786.8 million. The hold for online bets was much lower than retail at only 1.93 percent.
January proved to be a strong month for most sports betting markets across the US, as 14 of the 20 jurisdictions that had reported results recorded a new all-time high in betting handle.
The launch of sports betting in New York state meant Nevada slipped to No. 3 for betting handle in the country during January. New York landed on top with $1.686 billion in handle, followed by New Jersey with $1.348 billion.
