December 2022 saw some flurries in Old Dominion and in a similar fashion, Virginia sports betting beheld a flourish of activity. According to the Virginia Lottery, bettors in the state gambled over half a billion dollars over the final month of 2022.
While that isn’t a record for a single month in Virginia, it was still a fitting end to 2022. The state’s 14 sportsbooks fared quite well over the year and could start 2023 off with more good returns.
Virginia sports betting closes the book on 2022
The Virginia Lottery shared the latest numbers for regulated sports betting in the state, both in-person and online, on Jan. 31. The numbers for December 2022 at a glance were:
- $503 million in bets
- 47 million in adjusted gross revenue after promotional deductions
- $7 million in state tax payments
The amount spent on bets is about $25 million short of the state’s one-month record for dollars gambled set in October 2022. However, sportsbooks fared slightly better on the smaller amount of money put up as compared to October 2022. They won about 10% of the total amount gambled in December 2022 where as revenue amounted to around 8.6% in October.
The $503 million in bets was an improvement of almost 18% from the same metric in December 2021 as well.
Looking at the entire year of 2022 as a whole, December was one of the best months for Virginia sportsbooks. They’d probably prefer to keep that success going in 2023.
December helped push 2022 performance
For Virginia’s regulated sports betting industry, December 2022 represented the third consecutive month with at least $500 million in bets and the fourth straight month with more than $45 million in adjusted revenue. Only September ($48.3 million) and November ($52.8 million) saw sportsbooks keep more money than December did in 2022.
For the year as a whole, licensed Virginia sportsbooks reported $4.9 billion in bets and $347.7 million in adjusted revenue. There’s reason to believe 2023 could improve upon those numbers as well.
The number of operators in the state has grown to 16 with the recent launches of both bet365 and Betfred. At this point, however, it’s unclear whether that will mean more bets or if those two new sportsbooks will simply transfer market share away from other operators. At the same time, launch promotions built around Super Bowl LVII could mean some additional handle in February at least.
The state’s cut of sports betting handle could grow in 2023 as well. Most sportsbooks in Virginia have exhausted their temporary abilities to deduct promotional credits from their taxable revenues. However, a bill in the state legislature could restore some of that privilege.
As a whole, December 2022 represented a happy holiday for Virginia sportsbooks. The numbers for all of 2022 make breaking the $5 billion in bets threshold in 2023 a real possibility.
