Ohio sports betting starts with a boom

Ohio officially launched legal sports betting on January 1, with numerous tier one operators going live at midnight. Geolocation security and compliance company GeoComply’s published data suggests the launch was a large success, with 11.3m geolocation transactions recorded over the course of the New Year’s weekend.

The Ohio online sports betting launch saw Ohio usurp New York, Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Michigan for highest volume of transactions over the weekend period.

According to GeoComply’s data, Ohio’s online sports betting launch saw bets taken by 16 operators, across 784,000 unique accounts. In just the first hour of trading, 234,000 geolocation transactions were recorded. On a city by city breakdown, Ohio recorded the following:

• Cincinnati – 1,898,000 geolocation transactions
• Colombus – 1,033,000 geolocation transactions
• Cleveland – 772,000 geolocation transactions
• Toledo – 619,000 geolocation transactions

How did Ohio compare to neighbouring states?

Over the new year weekend, Ohio far outperformed its neighbouring states, per GeoComply data:

• Ohio – 11.3m geolocation transactions across 783,864 unique accounts
• Pennsylvania – 8.2m geolocation transactions across 527,371 unique accounts
• Indiana – 2.4m geolocation transactions across 163,924 unique accounts
• Michigan – 5.8m geolocation transactions across 418,513 unique accounts
• West Virginia – 0.8m geolocation transactions across 44,920 unique accounts

Despite New York being heralded as the largest state for online sports betting, Ohio’s launch weekend saw 2m more geolocation transactions than New York, with over 320,000 more unique accounts utilised in Ohio than the Big Apple. Ohio’s population is significantly less, totalling 11.8m versus New York’s 19.8m.

GeoComply SVP of Compliance Lindsay Slader commented: “We are thrilled to welcome another state into the regulated online sports betting sector. As expected, residents of the Buckeye State enthusiastically greeted the market at the moment the calendar changed over to 2023.”

Although GeoComply’s data does not provide a full picture of the state’s online sports betting potential, the early signs are promising. Under Ohio Revised Code Section 5753.021, the tax levied on sports gaming stands at 10% as well as the 0.25% federal excise tax on handle.

Ohioans are also legally able to bet at licensed casinos, speedways, kiosks, windows, sports bars, bowling alleys and grocery stores that have the appropriate licenses to offer sports betting.