Missouri saw a slight decrease in the amount wagered on sports betting in July, despite the FIFA World Cup held in the first half of the month. According to the Missouri Gaming Commission, this marked the fourth straight month that the total amount wagered fell below $275 million.
In July, there were more than 5.7 million total mobile and retail sports bets placed and $246.8 million wagered in Missouri. Comparing this to June, there was a decrease of $11.5 million, or 4.45%, in total dollars wagered.
Neil Schwartz, president of SBRnet, Inc., a provider of sports market analysis, was surprised that the FIFA World Cup did not lead to an increase in the amount wagered in Missouri.
“The amount of television exposure that the World Cup had, I'm surprised that gambling was down,” Schwartz said.
The total taxable revenue for July was $21.79 million, and the state collected roughly $2.19 million in sports wagering taxes. This marked an increase from June, which had $13.67 million in taxable revenue and $1.37 million in collected taxes.
Across all bets placed at retail locations and on mobile apps, parlays remained as the top betting type, with 3.27 million bets placed, followed by baseball with about 926,000 bets and soccer with almost 634,000.
The top mobile sports betting platform was DraftKings with roughly 2.9 million bets placed and $108.5 million wagered. The top retail sports betting location was River City Casino with 6,750 bets placed and roughly $700,000 wagered.
Retail bets accounted for only 1.3% of the $246.8 million wagered in July. Schwartz believes that retail bets will continue to fall in the future.
“I expect it to go down. Two areas that have really suffered ... obviously online gambling is one, the neighborhood bookie, and number two has been sportsbooks," Schwartz said. "You don't have to go to a brick and mortar sportsbook anymore to place a sports bet."
Despite the decrease in wagers the past few months, Schwartz expects bets to increase with the start of the football season in September. Based on previous reports from the Missouri Gaming Commission, bets skyrocketed during the active football season months.
This story was first published by Missouri Business Alert, a fellow member of the KC Media Collective.
