The Oregon Lottery’s Scoreboard enjoyed a record month in September, taking in $26.2m in handle as major sports returned across the US.
But the state also saw gross win fall 8% to $1.5m compared with August because of negative margins on American football bets.
Oregon is currently in T9th position on the Wedge Index as it benefits from online and retail-betting options thanks to Scoreboard’s monopoly status.
With competition from rival betting brands not allowed its performance can not be gauged against the market leaders.
That includes DraftKings which owns Scoreboard’s sportsbook platform supplier SBTech.
And as Washington, D.C. has shown, operating the state monopoly is no guarantee of commercial domination.
NFL return
In terms of revenues, Scoreboard saw a major rise in volume as the National Football League returned to action in September and handle reached $26.2m. Basketball still held the top spot in terms of volumes as the NBA playoffs progressed and $8m was staked on those games.
However, that represented a 43.8% drop on the previous month’s $14m bet on basketball, which had marked its return to action in July and was one of the few major sports leagues available to bet on at the time.
Scoreboard’s gross win on NBA matches was also down, 23.3.% to $675,000, during the period.
The return of the NFL pushed football into second place in terms of handle as Oregonians staked $7.2m on gridiron games.
However, Scoreboard also paid out more than it took in and recorded a loss of $148,000 on NFL games in September.
Football handle was lower than that recorded by basketball, but it saw the highest number of active players and bets of any sport.
This will make it the top grossing sport in Oregon next month, as long as there are no COVID outbreaks and games have to be cancelled.
Table tennis still popular
Baseball was third, recording $4.1m in stakes, although this was a drop of 6.5% on the amounts wagered in August. Scoreboard’s gross win rose 11.6% on MLB games to $393,000.
Soccer brought in gross revenues of $144,000 on $2.1m of stakes, while tennis brought in $137,000 on a handle of $1.4m.
Table tennis saw an upsurge of betting action as one of the few sports that was allowed during lockdown and its popularity seems to have endured.
Players staked $1.3m on the sport in September and Scoreboard took in $124,000 in gross win.
As in August, Scoreboard customers bet on 21 sports during the month, turnover was higher on pre-match bets.
Live bets made up more than two thirds of Scoreboard’s gross win at $1m compared to $505,000 for pre-match bets.
In total, 22,252 active players placed 839,162 bets, up 1.7%, with an average stake of $31.19, down 0.4%. The app signed up 4,364 new customers during the month.
