Share
Maryland’s legal sports betting market is on pace to produce its most lucrative fiscal year to date in terms of the statistic that matters the most to the state; tax revenue. While that is a low bar to clear in one way, the margin by which the new standard looks to be set is massive.
Maryland sportsbooks contributed a new single-month record tax haul in October. As you would expect, those tax dollars were the product of near-record metrics for Maryland sports betting.
The current fiscal year is likely to set records for those measures as well.
Maryland sportsbooks tally record tax contributions
In Maryland, licensed sportsbooks pay the state 15% of their adjusted monthly revenues. For October, that tax bill came to just over $5.8 million. That’s the highest single-month total in the state to date.
Gross revenue for the books came to a little more than $58.7 million. After allowable deductions, Maryland assessed its tax on a total of $38.7 million. Maryland law allows sports betting licensees to deduct the cost of expenses like promotional play each month.
For the current fiscal year through four months, Maryland has collected over $14.9 million in tax revenue from sportsbooks. That’s an improvement of 83% from the previous term. However, the 2022-23 was the first full fiscal year for Maryland sportsbooks. Legal sports betting began in December 2021.
October now stands as the new single-month record in this regard. However, it failed to achieve new heights across the board. New records in other statistics pertinent to legal sports betting in Maryland could be forthcoming.
Other monthly records still stand
October still stands in the shadow of other months in Maryland sports betting history in other metrics. That shadow isn’t long, however. According to Maryland Lottery and Gaming, the amount of money that bettors gambled using legal sportsbooks in Maryland during October of $483.1 million was second in the state’s history.
Gross win for the books during October 2023 stands as the third-highest single-month total in Maryland history as well. October’s $58.7 million is about 31.1% smaller than the record of $85.1 million from December 2022.
Through the first four months of FY23-24, Maryland sports bettors have gambled 92.7% more money than they did in the first four months of FY22-23. It’s important to note, though, that only in-person sports wagering was available during the earlier period. Online sportsbooks didn’t ramp up in Maryland until November 2022.
The current fiscal year will undoubtedly go down as the strongest for Maryland’s sports wagering industry yet. At the same time, sportsbooks are really just getting started in the state.
