The Nevada Gaming Control Board reported $569.2 million in sports betting handle for April on Wednesday, which represented a small year-over-year decline.

Wagering was down 4.8% compared to April 2023, though handle via sports betting apps as a percentage of overall handle reached 68.5%, the highest since reaching 73.5% last August.

Handle was also 27.5% lower compared to the $785.3 million in accepted bets in March, when Las Vegas serves as a bucket list destination for bettors who want to wager on college basketball during the NCAA Tournament.

Operators claimed $30.8 million in sports betting revenue, resulting in a 5.4% hold. Though revenue was down 5% versus 12 months ago, it was up 3.5% compared to March as the win rate was 1.6 percentage points higher.

Despite handle being 5.8% lower compared to the first four months of 2023 at $2.85 billion, revenue is up 3.1% as January and February winnings created a buffer to offset that decline. The state collected $2.1 million in taxes for April, and the $11.7 million in levies for 2024 is running $352,600 ahead of last year’s pace.

1 New York $1.97B
2 New Jersey $1.04B
3 N. Carolina $648.9M
4 Penn. $646.1M
5 Mass. $603.3M
6 NEVADA $569.2M
7 Maryland $486.3M
8 Michigan $414.4M
9 Indiana $393.9M
10 Tennessee $380.9M#SportsBettingX #GamblingX

— Chris Altruda (@AlTruda73) May 29, 2024

Revenue continue to be dragged down by bettors cashing winning football tickets. Operators reported a loss of $5.7 million in football wagers for April as they accepted only $2.4 million worth of bets.

The public has come away with $18.6 million in winnings compared to $2.7 million in handle over the last two months, which is slightly more than the $18.3 million for the same period in 2023, though payouts were more as bettors wagered $9.6 million in March and April of last year.

Basketball was the top source of revenue in April, with operators nearing a 6% win rate on $222.9 million worth of bets placed to reap $13.3 million in winnings. Action was up 3.1% year-over-year, but revenue was down 12.1% as the hold was almost nine-tenths of a percentage point lower.

The opposite was true for baseball: Handle slipped 15.7% to $188.9 million, but revenue climbed 18.4% to $10.7 million thanks to a 5.7% hold that was up 1.6 percentage points.

Handle in the catch-all “other” category, which includes golf, tennis, soccer, boxing, and mixed martial arts in Nevada, surpassed $100 million for just the second time dating to the start of the post-PASPA era in June 2018. The $100.4 million worth of bets placed was behind only the $100.9 million accepted last July.

Sportsbooks claimed $6.8 million in revenue from those bets, down 31.6% from the all-time high of $9.9 million reported 12 months prior.

Nevada’s sportsbooks continued their yo-yo results with hockey betting, this time posting a 10.4% win rate to collect $5.7 million. They were held to a 1.6% hold in March and came out only $730,000 ahead.

The $179.2 million in retail handle was down 11.7% year-over-year, but the $6.3 million in revenue was less than half the $13.8 million claimed in April 2023. The 3.5% hold was the second straight month it failed to reach 4%, the first time that has happened in back-to-back months when excluding the pandemic since the NGCB began breaking out those figures in January 2020.

The house still has a 6.7% hold in 2024, but the $68.8 million in revenue represents less than 40% of the overall year-to-date winnings compared to 52.5% overall mark of the past 52 months.

The hold for mobile wagering surpassed 6% for just the sixth time since 2020 as digital sportsbooks collected $24.5 million against $390 million in bets placed. The overall online win rate in 2024 is 5.7%, and it is the first time it has been above 5% for four consecutive months sicne the NGCB began publishing those figures.