In May of this year, Indiana became the tenth state that has legalized sports betting within its territory. It’s only on September 1, 2019, however, when the first retail sportsbook in the state finally started to accept wagers.
The license application for operators in the said state started in July. The Indiana Gaming Commission is responsible for verifying and giving out the licenses to these operators. As of today, there are now fourteen temporary sports betting licenses that are issued. Some of these are casinos, OTBs, and sportsbooks that are already opened and will be opening soon.
Indiana has always allowed online horse racing, fantasy sports, and games of skill from casinos like Poker, Video Poker, and Blackjack. Blackjack is the most popular in this state when it comes to table games and Blackjack.org can help the locals find online casinos with great bonuses.
Now, since mobile betting is already allowed in the state, the Indiana folks can now place sports wagers aside from playing on online casinos that are based outside the state. Local operators can no apply for a license, but so far, Indiana already has DraftKings, Betrivers Indiana, and Fan Duel. These three began operations on October 1, 2019.
During the first month, Indiana bookies were able to accept over 90 million USD worth of wagers from its locals and neighbor states. DraftKings Sportsbooks alone was able to get 39.3 million USD worth of wagers. That’s about 43 percent of the state’s total for a month.
Next to DraftKings was Betrivers Indiana. They got a total of 6.3 million USD in the handle. Meanwhile, FanDuel Sportsbooks got a total of 2.4 million USD worth of bets from the locals. However, note that FanDuel started to accept bets at the latter part of the month, and so November will be the real test for this giant bookie.
Boyd Gaming’s CEO is actually looking forward to and is quite optimistic about how FanDuel will do in this particular state. He sees that FanDuel will take a strong market share in Indiana for this month as it’s always done in new markets.
In total, Indiana was able to get a revenue of 11.6 million USD just for the month of October. To date, all bookies that are now accepting sports bets from locals and neighboring states were able to accept around 127 million USD of wagers.
When it comes to what the locals are wagering on, they seem to love placing bets for NFL games and college football. Around 45 percent of all wagers were placed for these games.
Local places where betting machines are placed are now becoming swamped by bettors. Blue Chip is one of the casinos that now accept wagers and are impressed with how their visitors are placing their bets.
Brenda Temple, vice president and general manager of Blue Chip has said, “We’re very happy how it’s been going. The FanDuel Sportsbook is attracting a younger demographic and quite a few are trying out the other games and amenities we have to offer.”
Blue Chip alone has already said that they are now welcoming more guests each day and this is mainly thanks to their betting machines. FanDuel will actually be adding four more seats in Blue Chip so that they could accommodate more people.
FanDuel also accepts bets on its website and they’re offering great bonuses of up to 500 US dollars. This is a common thing to happen as Indiana is still new in the market. It’s most likely that land and online casinos, as well as bookies, will be offering more promos and bonuses for this state to lure more bettors in.
Another thing that helps the sports betting industry in Indiana is the slow movement of Illinois when it comes to launching sports betting. Illinois has already decided on legalizing sports betting since June of this year. However, it seems like this state won’t be launching it this year just yet.
The state of Illinois is taking its time to establish rules and regulations that will surround its local sports betting. As of now, Illinois is still just accepting applications from operators to be given licenses. The locals of Illinois may have to wait until early next year to be able to place their bets locally. In the meantime, Indiana and Iowa will surely be benefitting from this.
Even Ohio is contributing to what Indiana is currently earning from sports betting. Ohio has not yet legalized sports betting, but it could still get its chance in the future.