April Brought Significant Decrease of Mississippi Sports Betting Revenues

The Mississippi Gaming Commission (MGC) report for April shows that sports betting revenues in this state have decreased significantly.

With $32.4m wagered and $4.9m revenue generated in March, this was the state’s second record regarding betting on sports events.

However, the incomes for the following month…

…are not looking good.

According to MGC, residents of Mississippi showed a decreased interest regarding sports betting in April.

A total of $19.1m was wagered on sporting events that month, while the revenues were down by more than double compared to the last month.

The combined income of Mississippi’s sportsbooks was just over $2m in April!

While the figures are discouraging, the amount of sporting events during each month has to be taken into consideration.

The NCAA March Madness tournament piqued the interest of sports bettors and gave a massive boost to the total monthly revenue.

On the contrary, April is quite an uneventful month regarding sporting events, with just a few major sporting actions to bet on.

Dominating sports

People in Mississippi prefer to predict the results of mostly basketball and baseball games. That is a trend that doesn’t change from month to month. In fact, basketball was the main contributor of March sports betting revenue.

Meanwhile, in April, football was the least interesting sport to bet on. In fact, it even caused big losses to betting venues.

Last month saw the numbers looking like this:

• 46.2% – Basketball generated almost half of all sports betting revenues
• $9.2 million – State wagering on basketball events
• $3.8 million – Total amount of wagers on baseball alone
• $2,475 – Wagers on football at sportsbooks in the state
• $13,776 – This is the lost that bookies in Mississippi made of on football bets

Parlay card brought in revenue of $195,328.67 with wagers of 1.1 million in total.

Other sporting events chipped in $316,571.62 in betting income for April with wagers totaling $1.4 million.

Mississippi casinos with the largest April income

Casinos on the Mississippi coast is where the majority contribution to the state’s sports betting earnings stems from; not only during this month, but during the whole year.

Wagers placed at the Mississippi coastal betting venues amounted to 61.8% of April’s total bets. Altogether, those sites generated a revenue of $1.1 million.

For now, there are 12 on-site casinos in the state, but MGS granted construction of the thirteenth site in the Gulf Coast region.

Comparing to revenues in March with the ones in April…

… it is obvious that sports betting in Mississippi has suffered a significant blow.

While incomes haven’t exceeded record figures from December 2018, during March of this year, Mississippi coastal casinos had recorded the second-highest monthly revenue.

The incomes for the 12 coastal venues was up by 13%, bringing them the total income of $124 million for that month.

According to Jay McDaniel, deputy director of the Mississippi Gaming Commission, the biggest reason for that growth was the March Madness sporting event.

“They saw really good numbers associated with March Madness,” he stated.

The increase in revenues was largely attributed to this NCCA’s college-level basketball tournament, which saw record betting not only in this state, but across the country.

Meanwhile, in the rest of America…

Mississippi isn’t the only state that is facing a decrease in sports betting incomes.

A lack of major league sporting events in April, has affected sportsbooks across the U.S.

Regulations from the Mississippi Gaming Commission prohibit mobile sports betting via online gaming portals.

The lack of mobile betting makes this state have less revenue than the states that provide this betting option. This is clear when we compare it to New Jersey.

New Jersey’s sportsbooks took more than $313m in sports bets in April. For the fourth month in a road, more than 80% of NJ’s wagers were placed using online and mobile devices, emphasizing that online sports betting makes a huge part of the revenue.