The launch of online sports betting in Massachusetts could deal a small blow to the wagering handle of nearby New Hampshire, which has been a beneficiary of the Bay State’s slow march towards the legalization of mobile bookmaking.
New Hampshire Lottery Commission Executive Director Charles McIntyre said earlier this week that they don’t expect to see much of a change in action at their three brick-and-mortar sportsbooks when Massachusetts goes live with legal wagering.
Although he said it’s still a bit fuzzy how Massachusetts will roll out sports betting, McIntyre added that New Hampshire's three books are close to the state’s border with Massachusetts, which is not an accident. And Massachusetts is planning for in-person sports betting at its casinos and racetracks, which are not as near the border, creating no big concerns about poaching retail players.
It’s when Massachusetts starts launching online sports betting sites at some point in and around March that New Hampshire will start to feel the pinch. New Hampshire has just one of those sites, which is run by DraftKings and launched in late 2019.
“Mobile, I would anticipate us taking a small hit,” McIntyre said. “I’m not denying the fact that there will be some players who drove here. We, through our geolocation, can see where the players are playing from with a heat map, and it's not surprising that they're all on the border.”
No big threat
McIntyre was speaking to Vermont’s Sports Betting Study Committee, which, as its name suggests, is studying the idea of legalizing sports betting in Vermont. And while the committee is leaning in favor of legalization, McIntyre was not concerned about Vermont stealing business from neighboring New Hampshire.
“One of the reasons we have no issue coming here is because not a lot of folks from Vermont come to New Hampshire to play,” he said. “There’s not a big population center on the border coming across. I think it's less than 1%. It's a rounding error.”
However, the spread of sports betting in Massachusetts could take a bigger bite of New Hampshire’s handle. For instance, DraftKings has suggested around a quarter of all Super Bowl Sunday bets in New Hampshire were linked to people with Massachusetts addresses.
McIntyre added during Tuesday’s meetings that the lottery's liability on the New England Patriots to win the last Super Bowl wound up being around $10 million, which would have been a serious blow to its finances if the team had pulled it off (they didn't).
“If they'd won the Super Bowl, we were underwater by millions,” the executive said.
Brisk business
Sports betting in New Hampshire has continued to grow in the absence of legal wagering in Massachusetts as well.
The New Hampshire Lottery reported that total sports wagering topped $861 million for its 2022 fiscal year, which was up more than 65% over the previous year. Of that, over $670 million was bet over the internet and more than $190 million was wagered at the state’s three retail sportsbooks.
New Hampshire's cut from legal sports betting has been increasing as well, to $23.9 million in tax for its 2022 fiscal year from almost $18 million a year earlier.
Furthermore, wagering tied to the start of the National Football League’s regular season got off to a hot start this year. The New Hampshire Lottery reported in September that sports bettors wagered almost $8.5 million on the first weekend of NFL games, up from $7.2 million in 2021.
“This is an incredibly exciting time for sports fans across the northeast, and our record-breaking success this past weekend demonstrates interest in football is at an all-time high here in the Granite State,” McIntyre said in a press release. “The NFL and NCAA football are our biggest sports betting drivers, making major impacts on our ongoing effort to maximize funding for education.”
