Nevada Sportsbooks Report Record September

YOU NEED US NOW MORE THAN EVER

Most mornings we here at the Educational Sports Betting Network peruse the news of the day, looking for interesting facts about the current state of sports wagering. This morning, I was greeted by this story put out by ESPN: Nevada Sportsbooks Have Record September. As the story notes, there has been much conjecture as to the overall effect to the sports betting handle in Nevada. In short, will it increase or decrease? Will we hold more of the handle or less?

Football was the catalyst for the historic month. Bettors lost a net $44.3 million off approximately $389 million in bets on the NFL and college football in September

Okay, let’s do some math with those numbers. The Handle was $389 million in bets and the story tells us bettors lost $44.3 million dollars, which is the Hold. What is really striking about this hold is it is nearly 11.4% of the handle! This won’t mean much to those of you just getting started in the fetid swamp of sports wagering, but this is mind-boggling to us here at ESBN.

Here’s why – anyone can throw a dart at a dartboard full of football picks and, over time, get 50% right and 50% wrong. So, you’ve broken even. However, when betting in a sportsbook, there is a commission paid to the sportsbook, known as the vigorish that works out to about 5.4%. Hence, 5.4% should be the approximate Hold rate of the betting Handle – even if you’re guessing.

BUT IT IS MORE THAN DOUBLE THAT AMOUNT

Forgive us, we’re just astounded at how bad people are at betting sports. This stuff isn’t easy, but a straight up guesser would be expected to lose only 5.4%. But these guessers, we guess, are REALLY bad at guessing!

Prior to enactment of the legislation to allow sports wagering in other states, Nevada expressed some concern that its overall sports betting handle would decrease, due to the legalized wagering activities in other states that did not allow it before. The ESPN story quoted above goes on to provide a quote from Michael Lawton of Nevada Gaming Control (the regulating body for sports betting in the State of Nevada) who expressed relief that neither the handle nor the hold declined in the month of September, 2018!

Holy smokes, here’s a guy who is supposed to be regulating this stuff – how the sportsbooks operate – and he is relieved they made more money! Why should he care what the handle and hold are? He’s the regulator! It appears the foxes are fully in control of the hen house!

Why is this important to you, the (fledgling) sports bettor? Throughout this website, we have discussed many of the pitfalls that go along with betting on sports. Not only is it difficult to handicap, bet intelligently and handle your success (or failure), but every time we look around, more money is being made FROM the gamblers. And, apparently, this thrills the regulators, too!

Yeah, betting on sports is a lot of fun and it’s great to hold and cash winning tickets. But, there is a Method to this Madness. Please take the time to review the information on this website. We want to help you be a winner and take back a little money from the sportsbook’s largesse – we got your back!