The Week In Sports Betting News: Will Momentum Carry Into February? – Legal Sports Report

Happy Monday, folks. Earnings season is approaching the lull between fourth-quarter and first-quarter but there is still news concerning sports betting bills in multiple legislatures.

The LSR Podcast discussed the changing US sports betting industry with all the surprises coming out of earnings calls so far, including Churchill Downs shutting down their sportsbook and Caesars Sportsbook ending most external marketing.

Make sure you are following @LSPReport on Twitter for the latest news all week.

The first February sports betting reports should come out this week and give a sense of how much of the record betting in January continued into February.

Total reported January handle from 23 jurisdictions is $8.4 billion. That is by far the monthly record since PASPA fell in May 2018, up 121.3% from January 2021 and 38.5% from December.

Much of that growth, of course, is from the incredible start for mobile sports betting in New York. The state is on pace to top $1.5 billion in handle for February.

No jurisdictions should be setting handle records in February. January has the benefit of NFL betting and March has March Madness betting, but outside of Super Bowl betting, February is pretty slow in terms of sports.

Expected reports this week include Indiana, Iowa and Maryland.

Multiple US sportsbooks and a sports betting regulator are no longer allowing bets on events in and involving teams from Russia and Belarus.

The Colorado Division of Gaming suspended betting on all Russian and Belarusian events Friday. That is notable because table tennis from those countries is consistently one of Colorados top sports for the month with more than $7 million bet in January.

DraftKings was the first to make the move, quickly followed by FanDuel on Thursday. PointsBet and Caesars took the markets down later Thursday. B2B sportsbook tech provider IGT also ended betting on the markets.

DraftKings was fined $150,000 by NJ sports betting regulators for allowing a VIP customer to bet through a proxy from its suite at Super Bowl in 2020, according to a complaint.

A five-page report from the NJ Attorney Generals office shows DraftKings breached proxy betting rules multiple times in 2019 and 2020.

DraftKings told LSR it is improving its systems to detect such violations:

We strive to continuously improve our systems to detect violations of our terms of use. In this instance, our systems failed to detect the violation of our terms of use. We have taken corrective action to address that.

It was a long 11 months but remote registration is finally back for Illinois sportsbooks and it brought a friend: BetMGM.

BetMGM launched Saturday, the same day remote registration went live for good in Illinois.

There are now seven online sportsbooks in the state.

Legislatures in Missouri and Oklahoma advanced their respective sports betting bills last week. Neither state is a lock to legalize, though.

In Missouri, a special house committee voted to move bills along, but that was only after multiple adjustments and promises made.

This bill still needs work, Committee ChairRep. Scott Cuppssaid. There is a desire by the bodies of this institution to see this bill moving. I agree with that and Ive gotten commitments from bill sponsors, and many folks with interest in this legislation, theyll continue to work with some of those concerns.

Oklahomas bill passed its House committeebut has a deadline coming quickly. HB 3008 has to be approved by the full House before March 24.

The permanent Mohegan Sun FanDuel Sportsbook held its grand opening Saturday with fanfare and celebrity guests.

The 11,000 square-foot book includes seating for more than 200 people, a 140-foot video wall, and more than 40 places to bet between kiosks and windows.

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The Week In Sports Betting News: Will Momentum Carry Into February? - Legal Sports Report