The Kansas City Chiefs’ Arrowhead Stadium has emerged as a key betting hotspot at the end of the first week since the state’s sports betting market launched on Dec. 1, as the Chiefs took on the Houston Texans in the NFL's Sunday Night Football.
Key Takeaways
- The first week of sports betting saw tens of thousands of new accounts.
- Arrowhead Stadium emerged as a betting hotspot before the Texans-Chiefs game.
- GeoComply announced 2.6 million geolocation checks were made in the first 24 hours of the market’s debut.
Geolocation company GeoComply, which provides location confirmation services to several major sportsbook brands, reported over 10,000 active sports betting accounts detected at the stadium during the Chiefs' Week 14 matchup the Texans.
According to the company, between 5 p.m. and 11 p.m. on Sunday, more than 43,000 geolocation checks were logged, suggesting a high level of consumer engagement with live, in-stadium wagering as part of the game experience. Arrowhead Stadium has a 76,416-seat capacity, and the numbers indicate a high concentration of fans taking part in legal betting for the first time.
GeoComply said the spike at Arrowhead reflected a broader enthusiasm among residents for the Missouri legal sports betting market that launched on Dec.1.
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Missouri bettors jump into legal sports wagering
For the first few days after the launch, local media outlets reported on sports fans embracing sports betting as a new part of the game-day experience.
Data from sportsbooks confirms the high level of interest. Betting operator BetMGM, which operates in 30 states across the U.S., reported a surge in app signups and activations, particularly around the time of Kansas City Chiefs games. The NFL is the most popular professional sports league in the U.S., and the Chiefs have been one of the most successful franchises over the last seven years.
According to sportsbook sites, futures bets on the Chiefs to win the Super Bowl and the AFC led the way in early betting, underlining the team's importance to the Missouri sports betting sector over the next few years.
GeoComply’s early snapshot of Missouri launch
As well as the heightened activity in and around Arrowhead Stadium, during the first 24 hours following the Dec. 1 launch, GeoComply reported over 2.6 million geolocation checks statewide, with over 250,000 active sports betting accounts. It also revealed that nearly 188,000 pre-registered accounts had been created in the two weeks leading up to launch.
Kip Levin, the Chief Executive Officer at GeoComply, noted in a press release that early numbers indicated that consumers were quick to adopt regulated betting once the option became available.
GeoComply also said that it would be able to provide a more comprehensive analysis, including data from the Chiefs’ latest primetime home game, after a full week of operation.
