Legal online Louisiana sports betting is now more than a year old. For the first time, it’s possible to compare annual figures from the same months as the Louisiana Gaming Control Board (LGCB) has released sports betting revenue numbers for January 2023.
It’s really an unfair comparison, however. Online sportsbooks in 2022 didn’t have the benefit of the full month. For that reason, the sportsbooks’ revenue is as lopsided in favor of 2023’s tally as you would imagine.
Louisiana sports betting sees first full January numbers
The New Orleans Saints didn’t qualify for the playoffs this past NFL season. Despite that, sportsbook operators in all but nine parishes in Louisiana got their first taste of a full NFL postseason slate this year.
Louisianans in the permitting parishes plunked down over $282.2 million on sports in January 2023. After making their promotional deductions, the state’s sportsbooks reported $27.9 million in revenue out of that total.
Thus, promotional deductions aside, books won 9.8% of bets for the month. The LGCB’s breakdown by method of wager for the month is as follows:
- Physical sportsbooks – $37 million in bets, $6 million in revenue
- Online sportsbooks – $245.2 million in bets, $21.9 million in revenue
Making almost $28 million during the month puts the books on a good trajectory to beat their 2022 numbers this year. In 2022, they started out with a deficit of sorts.
Startup costs produced big year-over-year increase
The first online sportsbooks didn’t launch in most of Louisiana until Jan. 28 last year. That means at most, online books had only four days during the month to pull in some cash. Additionally, their launch offers to new bettors were costly.
For January 2022, online sportsbooks reported over $11.6 million worth of promotional credits. That, in turn, drove their revenue down to a loss of $9 million. That was more than sufficient to cancel out the $5.6 million that retail sportsbooks won during the month.
For that reason, Louisiana’s sportsbooks overall lost $3.4 million in January 2022. Last month’s revenue represented a $25 million year-over-year improvement, therefore. It was also a foregone conclusion that January 2023 was going to represent some kind of increase. Now, industry analysts know exactly how much.
