Iowa’s sports betting market scored a trifecta last month, breaking the previous records for online handle, online revenue and combined online and retail turnover.
iGaming Business and Ficom Leisure are delighted to present the Iowa iGaming Dashboard, providing a monthly breakdown of the latest figures from the Hawkeye State’s regulated gambling market.
The data will be updated monthly following the official release of figures from the Iowa Racing and Gaming Commission.
Most impressive was the state’s online/mobile GGR, which smashed the previous record by coming in at $6.4m last month. This was more than double the previous high of $2.7m, which had been achieved in both September this year and October of last year.
The strong revenue largely represented the odds going in bookies’ favour, however, as while online handle was also up, the rise there was not as large. Last month’s online handle of $56.9m did still better the previous record of $50.0m, set in September.
On a year-on-year basis, last month’s online handle was up 120%, although it should be noted that last October had been only the third month of legal betting in the state.
Compared with online, the performance of retail wasn’t as strong, although the channel’s rebound from the lockdown period continued to gather pace. Retail sportsbooks made GGR of $2.7m last month, an 8% rise on September but a 10% fall on last October.
Handle was up on both fronts, however, with last month’s $25.0m representing an 11.6% month-on-month increase and a 23.4% year-on-year rise.
Though not quite in record-breaking territory, when combined with online handle, retail helped the overall market turnover reach an all-time high of $81.9m in October.
William Hill-partnered Penn National’s Prairie Meadows Racetrack and Casino remained the leader in the market in GGR terms on both an online-only and combined basis, with market shares of 33.9% and 25.7%, respectively.
FanDuel’s online offering performing strongly during its second month of operation in the state.
Via its partnership with Boyd Gaming’s Diamond Jo Worth and Dubuque properties, it took online market shares of 5.8% and 9.0%, last month, up from 3.7% and 4.2% the previous month.
This was enough to take the Dubuque property into third place in the online market, below Wild Rose Jefferson in second with 13.4%.
Unfortunately, the DFS giant didn’t perform as well in retail and its overall market share fell dramatically at the previously third-placed Worth property, dropping to 8.7% last month from 14.2% in September.
Interestingly, the Kambi-powered Ameristar II also suffered big losses last month, seeing its share fall to 9.3% from 15.5% in September.
This led to Wild Rose Jefferson overtaking it for second place, with a market share of 9.7%, up from 7.5% in September.
Ficom Leisure also provides monthly figures on New Jersey in the New Jersey iGaming Dashboard, Indiana in the Indiana iGaming Dashboard, and Pennsylvania in the Pennsylvania iGaming Dashboard.
It also provides quarterly figures, available via iGamingBusiness.com, on the Italian online market in the Italy IGaming Dashboard, on the Danish market in the Denmark iGaming Dashboard, on the Spanish market in the Spain iGaming Dashboard, and on the Portuguese market in the Portugal iGaming Dashboard.