West Virginia Sports Betting Has a Strong Start of Fiscal Year With $704K in Revenue

During the first five weeks of the 2020 fiscal year, West Virginia has reported a fine increase in sports betting revenue. To this, Penn National Gaming’s Hollywood Casino at Charles Town Races is the key contributor.

The total amount of $704,475 taxable revenue for five weeks beginning on July 1st leading to August 3rd. Most of it – $539,879 – originated from Hollywood Casino.

Hollywood Casino Without Peers

As far as player stakes go…

…they amounted to $7.6 million over this period. Hollywood Casino players contributed to that with $6 million. Their DraftKings operated sportsbook platform generated most of this revenue during the week leading to July 20th, when revenue reached $274,305. This made quite a turnaround from the week prior which was the poorest in of performance, with a loss of $70,347 reported.

In second place – in of revenue collection – was Mountaineer Casino with their William Hill Sports Book. Their revenue contributed with $109,544. Despite the pretty slow start to the fiscal year, their income kept growing a reached a peak of $41,187 for the week of July 27th.

For the final week that ended on August 3rd, this casino’s sports betting revenue totaled $33,128, which is the highest total for any licensed casino in West Virginia. Hollywood Casino, for instance, managed to collect only $784 during this week.

The Rest of the Pecking Order

WV Governor, Jim Justice, has his own private resort, The Greenbrier…

…which amassed $63,269 in revenue during this five-week period. This property was hit with two weeks of losses due to customers winning – the loss during this period up until July 13th was $10,008. This was repeated for the week leading to August 3rd with a $11,651 loss.

Mardi Gras and Wheeling, owned by Delaware North, no longer have sportsbooks after a dispute with tech partner with Miomni who initially secured their sports betting services. Both casinos made losses.

$1,923 is what Wheeling had to pay out – $1,2300 of which was won via mobile devices and BetLucky App from December to March, while Mardi Gras had to cash out $6,295 over five weeks – with $1,505 for mobile wagers.

Doing Good So Far

Figures released in June showcase a fine performance this vertical has had in this state in May…

…in fact, that month alone provided a huge boost in of revenue, as it skyrocketed 69% in comparison to April. With a revenue of almost a million dollars, the total sportsbook handle amounted to $10.7 million, which is only a slight increase from April’s $10.3 million.

DraftKings App Delay

Even though DraftKings’ mobile app was launched to a great success…

…it wasn’t without its problems before it was rolled out. The WV state lottery has delayed its release on several occasions due to the Federal Wire Act.

John Myers, WV Lottery director, explained at the time:

“Everyone involved wants to make sure we proceed the right way. The construction of the network and the mobile app involves many parties and can affect the operations of other jurisdictions”

“The Lottery wants to see a successful launch as soon as possible, but we must make sure that the citizens of West Virginia and our employees are not put at risk. We are working closely with the parties involved, however it will take time to build the system.”

Source:

“WV sports betting off to strong start in new fiscal year”, igbnorthamerica.com, August 13, 2019.