Results published by the Tennessee Education Lottery (TEL), the body responsible for online sportsbook licensing and regulation, show that customers wagered a total of $160.9m on sports during the month of May.
The figure is down 6.7% on the $172.4m wagered in April, making May the month with the lowest total handle in Tennessee since the market launched in November 2020, when players wagered $131.4m.
Of the total wagered in May, $145.5m was paid out in prizes, and operators were left with an adjusted gross income of $13.7m, after paying $2.7m to the state in privilege taxes.
In April, the total wagered in the state since the market’s launch last year surpassed $1bn.
Tennessee was the first state in the US to allow mobile and online wagering without a land-based tethering requirement, under a bill which was passed into law without its governor’s signature.
The Tennessee Education Lottery announced last week that it had surpassed $2bn in total annual revenue for the 2021 fiscal year as of June 15, which marked the first time the operator had reached the milestone.
This fiscal year, which began on July 1, 2020, saw the lottery record its best ever Q1 results, bringing in $498.2m in revenue in three months, of which $114.0m was transferred to the Lottery for Education Account.
The fiscal year’s third quarter then saw the operator transfer a record $140.3m to the Lottery for Education Account.