Iowa’s sports betting market continued to recover strongly last month, with revenues climbing firmly above pre-crisis levels and handle hitting an all-time high.
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.
In the online channel, revenues rose to $2.7m in September, a 69% rise on the previous month and a 35% rise on the same month the previous year, the first full month of regulated sports betting in Iowa.
The September revenue figure also matched the market’s previous record, set in October 2019.
Retail revenues rose to $2.5m last month, representing a substantial 79% month-on-month increase but a 14% year-on-year decrease.
The state also broke some records last month, with online handle of $50m smashing the previous high of $37.8m, achieved in February.
And while not a market high, retail handle also fared well last month, with the $22.4m in bets taken representing a 46.4% rise on August and a 34.1% rise on the same month the previous year.
When combined, the online and retail handle total was the highest since the market opened, with the $72.4 of September representing a 21.9% increase on the previous record of $59.4m, from November last year.
Penn National’s Prairie Meadows Racetrack and Casino, partnered with William Hill, continued to lead the market on both an online-only and combined basis, with market shares of 36.4% and 21.1%, respectively.
One interesting development of last month was the launch of FanDuel’s online offering in the state.
Though it has been partnered with Boyd Gaming’s Diamond Jo properties in Worth and Dubuque since their retail sportsbooks were launched, it was only last month that the online offerings came into play.
The two properties took fairly modest online shares of 3.7% and 4.2%, respectively, last month, though the Worth property had the third largest market share in the combined market at 14.2%.
Given the second-placed sportsbook, the Kambi-powered Ameristar II (with 15.5% in September), remains retail-only, it will be interesting to see if the addition of online helps propel Diamond Jo Worth above the Ameristar II long term as the two sportsbooks have regularly tussled for second place.
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.