Sports gambling in Delaware received a boost from March Madness last month.
In March alone Delaware saw over 761,000 bets placed on sports with over 605,000 placed through the state’s mobile app.
In February, the total bets placed were over 610,000 with just under a half-million of those placed online according to Delaware Lottery Director Helene Keeley.
Delaware Lottery Director Helene Keeley says the difference last month was the NCAA Tournament.
"We definitely saw the spike up and then obviously on Monday it would go back down after the Sunday night games, and then obviously like Wednesday, Thursday morning during March Madness it would come back up as soon as the games were scheduled to start playing that day or that evening and we definitely saw the increase," said Keeley.
Keeley notes while April numbers aren’t officially released, she did say that the Masters golf tournament provided a bump earlier this month.
She adds a boost is also expected during the NASCAR race weekend in Dover which includes a race named after BetRivers - the sports betting app used in Delaware - as well as the NFL Draft going on as well.
Delaware’s numbers pale in comparison to other states in the region especially New Jersey and Maryland for a couple of reasons, population size and the other states also have more than one option to place mobile bets.
Keeley says having one platform for all online gaming in the First State is the method preferred by both customers and casinos.
"It's something that the customers wanted, and it's something the casinos wanted,” said Keeley. “They wanted that one platform where a customer could say okay let me place a bet because this is what I want to do, but let me go back over and play some blackjack and that's exactly what they have the ability to do on one app."
But sports betting options could expand soon. State lawmakers recently introduced a bill to allow more than one mobile sports betting option in Delaware.
Currently, the state’s sole online sports betting vendor is Rush Street Interactive through the BetRivers app.
