The start of the NFL season not only sparks increased play on sportsbooks, Pennsylvania online casinos also see an uptick in activity. Over the past two years, online casino revenue has increased at least 6% from August to September.
Eilers & Krejcik Gaming, authors of the The EKG Line newsletter, tracked the amount of online casino downloads during the month of August as the NFL prepared for the start of the regular season in early September. Even though BetMGM Casino PA placed behind two of its counterparts, it still remains in good position.
BetMGM recorded third-most PA online casino downloads last month
BetMGM reported a slight loss in online casino market share in Q2 2023, and it doesn’t appear the operator has gained much momentum since. DraftKings has taken over as the No. 1 online casino operator in terms of gross gaming revenue (GGR), with FanDuel closing in on both platforms, too.
The middle and end of August is when operators, along with bettors, start to gear up for a busy Q4 with football on the horizon. A chart provided by Eilers & Krejcik Gaming displayed bettors downloaded FanDuel Casino PA at a much higher rate in August than DraftKings and BetMGM.
BetMGM also found itself behind DraftKings in total August downloads. Eilers & Krejcik Gaming wrote that BetMGM has been supplanted by DraftKings in total market share, and that it has to look out for another operator.
“BetMGM will be under pressure from Caesars, but we regard the quality of the BetMGM app as a good hedge against major GGR share loss,” the newsletter said.
The good news is that BetMGM isn’t going anywhere, despite losing some market share. It always had competition with DraftKings, but now has to seriously worry about both FanDuel and Caesars Palace Casino.
September is an important time for Pennsylvania online casinos
As previously noted, Q4 is the most important time of year for operators, as September usually sets the tone.
Since 2021, September has been the second-most lucrative time period for PA online casino revenue through the first nine months of the year. In September 2021, online casinos reported $111.9 million in revenue, as September 2022 drew $139.7 million. This September is expected to exceed $160 million in earnings.
During its Q4 2023 earnings call, BetMGM CEO Bill Hornbuckle, said admittedly, that his product simply isn’t good enough, which has been a reason for the loss of share.
Now that football is back, BetMGM is preparing to cross-promote sportsbook players to the online casino. BetMGM and Angstrom Sports formed a partnership earlier this summer to provide players with generation sports modeling, forecasting and data analytics. Hornbuckle said:
“I think the moves that we’re now making with Entain, our partner, and the moves we’re going to make with Angstrom, as an onboarded partner for BetMGM, will get us to a place where we’ll be back in that game in a meaningful way and hopefully begin to gain some share back.”
BetMGM has already been pushing cross-promotion with several Pittsburgh Steelers-branded games and contests leading to Steelers tickets as prizes. It is also launching the popular land-based Buffalo slot as an online casino game in Pennsylvania soon. BetMGM’s continuous innovation should keep itself in the mix going forward.
September is a big month to see where BetMGM stands in the online casino race. By the end of Q4, we’ll have an even better picture.
