This week’s US gambling news finds that casinos, online gambling, and sports betting generated nearly $5 billion in the month of April! The second highest revenue totals of all time! On top of that, sports betting in America continues to expand and could get a huge boost as soon as next year!
Hello friends! Here we are all together again! We have sports betting news from California, poker news from Las Vegas, and of course a brand new game review! But first, we have to do it: This week’s big story: Gambling in America has been kicking ass and taken names for quite a while now. Helping to bridge that gap between COVID recovery and the looming economic downturn on our horizon. But in between, it’s been one hell of a ride!
The numbers are in for the month of April when the US gambling industry brought in nearly $5 billion in revenue. That’s the second highest total of all time, trailing only March of this year. But despite the huge growth in the sports betting industry, it was actually casinos that brought in the most cash. Of that $5 billion, casinos accounted for 80% of the revenue… or a cool $4 billion. Online gambling brought in over $400 million, and sports betting half a billion dollars… which is still amazing when you think about it, because sports betting was illegal everywhere in America except for two states just a few short years ago!
Things could get even better for sports betting next year as companies like DraftKings are quite bullish on industry growth. In fact, DraftKings believes that California (which has the potential to be the largest sports betting market in America) will legalize and regulate betting on sports before the kickoff of the NFL season in 2023. Of course, DraftKings does have a lot of money invested in the success of California sports betting… a lot! That could explain, in part, their optimistic outlook.
Meanwhile in Massachusetts, regulators there are trying like hell to get a last minute sports betting deal done this year. But even if they don’t, there’s always next year. And besides, a lot of states are interested in sports betting regulation… a lot! Some industry experts estimate that we could have as many as 45 states regulating sports betting as soon as 2025! That’s if taxes don’t get too crazy, of course.
But I’m gonna go out on a limb here and say that I believe for sure that no matter how big sports betting gets or how rapidly sports betting expands we will never have more than 50 states with regulated sports betting. Of course, I’m just doing that math in my head. This week’s game review is for the Blazin’ Bullfrog online slot from the good folks at Play’n Go. It’s a five reel, three row game with 243 pay lines that features wilds and expanding wilds, plus scatters and wild scatter substitutes for all symbols. You can find this review, along with hundreds more for both online and land-based slot games, when you visit our YouTube channel.
And finally this week, on our last show we spoke about the World Series of Poker which is currently underway in Las Vegas… and that’s where I’m gonna be heading in just a few days! Not to play in the World Series of Poker… because, well I’m poor… and I sort of suck at poker. But otherwise… oh, look out! The point is, I will be filming at the WSOP and on the Las Vegas Strip, primarily around Bally’s between June 19th and June 22nd… so if you’re in Vegas or at the event, come find me. Jump in the shot. Photobomb me… or whatever it is the kids are calling it these days.