Sports wagering revenue in Mississippi rocketed by 4,333.8% year-on-year to $3.9m in May, while the US state’s handle also jumped 15,175.0% to $36.1m.
Mississippi’s land-based casinos and sportsbooks were closed for almost all of May last year due to state-wide novel coronavirus (Covid-19) restrictions and did not resume operations until May 21.
As in-person sports betting is the only legal form of wagering in Mississippi, revenue in May 2020 only included activity from the final 10 days of the month when sportsbooks were able to reopen.
Retail sportsbooks were able to operate throughout May this year, explaining the significant year-on-year rise in revenue and handle.
However, on a month-on-month basis, revenue was 9.3% lower than the $4.3m recorded in April of this year.
Coastal casinos were again the main source of revenue, accounting for $1.9m of the total for the month. Central casinos followed with $1.5m of the market share, while the remaining $574,933 came from northern casinos.
Turning to handle, the $36.1m spent by players in May was not only much higher than the $236,503 wagered in the same month last year, but also 9.7% up from $32.9m in April.
More than half of this – $20.7m – was spent at coastal casinos, while $9.9m was wagered at central casinos and $5.6m at northern casinos.
While Mississippi is currently limited to retail sports betting, in March PointsBet was granted access to online betting in the state, when it regulates online gambling, via an extension of its market access agreement with Penn National Gaming (PNG).