Legal Sports Betting Reaches New Heights: Signals Lean Times Ahead for Illegal Bookies

Tens of millions of Americans now have the choice to bet legally with state-approved and regulated sportsbooks this NFL season.

In what can only be a sign of dismal days to come for the illegal market, data compiled by GeoComply Solutions Inc. reveals that in just one year, legal online sports betting volumes have more than doubled from last year.

The combination of new sports betting states and American consumers migrating to legal sportsbooks has resulted in the highest four day stretch of geolocation transactions ever recorded by GeoComply (whose compliance services are used to support nearly 100% of the US online sports betting market).

“Preparing for this NFL season has been a process that began before the end of last season, and we expected high volumes, but what we have seen has surprised us nonetheless,” said Lindsay Slader, Managing Director of Gaming for GeoComply. “The level of demand across new markets, such as Arizona, indicates that consumers have long waited for the option to legally place a sports bet.”

“The data tells a remarkable story about the growth of the industry in a short period of time. This success is a credit to all our clients and state regulators, who have worked tirelessly to prepare for the start of the new NFL season.”

According to the data collected and analyzed by GeoComply, there were 58.2 million geolocation transactions across 18 states and the District of Columbia, from Thursday, September 9th through 7 PM ET on Sunday, September 12th. This represents a 126% increase from the same period of the 2020 NFL season when GeoComply processed 25.8 million transactions.

The data also reveals that the states with the highest volume of transactions were:

• New Jersey
• Pennsylvania
• Michigan
• Arizona
• Illinois

Arizona, which launched on the first day of the NFL season, has seen more than 6.1 million geolocation transactions from more than 271,000 newly-created accounts since Thursday, when the state-regulated sportsbooks first went live.

“Arizona is showing that there is pent up demand for sports betting in the western part of the U.S. The state has catapulted near the top as the 4th largest state for transactions, in just its first weekend. We haven’t seen anything quite like it,” Slader added.

“I am immensely proud of the GeoComply team who has put in thousands of hours to ensure a seamless and most importantly, safe start to the NFL season. Whether it’s confirming location, verifying identities or detecting and thwarting possible fraud, our geolocation compliance and security solutions are committed to support the regulated online gaming environment,” Slader concluded.

GeoComply plans to release its data periodically throughout the 2021/2022 sports calendar to help inform insight and discussions about the U.S. sports betting industry.