Nevada sportsbooks won $30.9 million from bettors in February from a handle of $780.8 million, according to figures released Wednesday morning by the state's Gaming Control Board.
The handle was an increase of 40.9 percent from last February’s $554.3 million and is an all-time Nevada record for the month, said GBC senior economic analyst Michael Lawton, who also pointed out that the sportsbooks’ win was actually down 2.9 percent from last February, so that didn’t set a record.
Lawton said that was due to the low 3.96 hold percentage, however, that didn’t keep the state from winning a February record of $1.11 billion from all gaming sources (led, as always, by slots), topping the billion-dollar mark for the 12th straight month.
Back to the sportsbooks, Nevada’s handle again ranked No. 3 in the nation behind the states of New York ($1.53 billion, with a "b") and New Jersey ($985.6 million) among states that have released their February figures. Pennsylvania ($597 million) is No. 4, followed by Michigan ($423.8 million) at No. 5, Indiana ($409.1 million), Tennessee ($313.3 million), Louisiana ($238.4 million), Iowa ($215.9 million) and Connecticut ($115.6 million).
Basketball led the way in February with a win of $12.5 million for Nevada’s books, a drop of 34.8 percent from February 2021. Football was next with a win of $11.1 million. Regular readers might recall that Nevada won $15.4 million on the Super Bowl from an all-time record handle of $179.8 million. However, the overall February win for the books also includes winning tickets paid out during the rest of the month on regular-season games, earlier playoff games, Over/Under season win totals, divisional and conference futures, all regular and postseason props, etc.
The books also won $4 million on hockey and $3.4 million on the “other” category that includes everything but the Big Four.
Lawton also pointed out that the books won $9.1 million from $513 million in wagers on mobile devices. That’s an even lower hold of 1.8 percent, so those using mobile devices proved to be even sharper. Mobile bets accounted for 65.7 percent of all wagers, which is much lower than the newer states where the percentage of mobile wagers is closer to 90 percent.