Remember Delaware? It’s one of the most overlooked states in the country for several reasons. One, it’s just tiny — both in land size and population. America loves doing things big, and well, Delaware doesn’t do the same.
Two, Delaware happens to be surrounded by way bigger states, and inside of them, massive cities. Baltimore, Philadelphia, Newark, and Washington DC are all within 100 miles of the state’s border.
This forgotten element of Delaware is why we like writing updates on the state. Most people aren’t noticing, but Delaware’s betting market is sneaky good despite some unique situations. You’re going to want to keep reading because we have some recent news on what’s going on in The First State:
Delaware Smashes Its Own iGaming Record
We all know legalized sports betting has swept through the United States. Right now, there are 38 states that have legal sports betting in some capacity. That group includes Delaware, which will talk about later on.
However, the first topic of discussion is iGaming — as in online casinos. This has yet to catch on in America. As it stands, only these seven states have legalized iGaming:
- Connecticut
- Delaware
- Michigan
- New Jersey
- Pennsylvania
- Rhode Island
- West Virginia
Just seven — that’s it. Delaware is on that short list, and in fact, they were very early adopters. Delaware actually legalized it in 2012 with the passage of the Delaware Gaming Competitiveness Act. This actually predates New Jersey’s betting market, which legalized in 2013. Everyone likes to credit Jersey as the innovators in betting, and they are, but so is Delaware. As we said, folks just like to overlook them.
Anyways, online casino betting is very much a fabric of Delaware as they’ve had it for over a decade now. However, it’s still growing at a record pace, per the latest numbers.
For the second consecutive month, Delaware iGaming has set new a record for revenue. July figures were released by the Delaware Lottery and it was blowout numbers — by their standards, at least. Online casino revenue for July was $5.2 million.
More interestingly, that is up 3.3 percent from June’s number, which was just over $5 million. That June mark was the previous record. With the achievement, this marks the first time in the state’s illustrious history that online gambling has hit $5 million in back-to-back months.
All eyes are on a threepeat for August. Those numbers have yet to be released but will be out any day now. We’ll be monitoring them, that’s for sure.
Deeper Look At Delaware iGaming Numbers
The Delaware Lottery went in-depth on the $5.2 million in revenue hit for July. They broke down which casinos performed the best, and also the slots vs. table games breakdown. Let’s examine, shall we?
Let’s begin with the casinos. In the state of Delaware, all casino betting must be undertaken by one of the states three legal establishments — Bally’s Dover, Delaware Park Casino, and Harrington Casino & Raceway. They offer betting in-person, but also online thanks to a partnership with Rush Street International (RSI) that started at the tail end of 2023.
These numbers are focused strictly on the online component. Credit to Delaware Park Casino because they carried the state to record revenues. The flagship property alone posted $2.9 million in revenue. Harrington was second at $1.3 million and Bally’s finished last with $1 million.
Slot revenue did the heavy lifting too. Among the three casinos combined, slots chipped in over $3.5 million in revenue. Table games like blackjack or roulette did the rest at $1.6 million. This is the norm in the industry. Casinos, even the ones in Macau and Vegas, make the biggest bucks from slot machines.
Rush Street Responsible For Betting Uptick
As we mentioned, Rush Street became the official partner of the casinos last year. Delaware runs all of its betting through its lottery system. Rather than open the market up, they’ve chosen one partner — Rush Street — to run their online betting operations. This goes for sports betting in the state too.
Anyways, the switch away from previous partner, William Hill, and to Rush Street is partly responsible for these record numbers. We can confidently say that by taking one look at the year-over-year numbers, which are actually the most impressive of all.
Get this, year-on-year Delaware iGaming revenue was up 339.5 percent. Yes, more than 3X from 2023. That is no coincidence, folks. That’s a direct reflection of Rush Street just offering a way better product for in-state bettors than their predecssors.
In line with that, Rush Street also recently announced they are bringing even more online casino games to Delaware via a deal with game-maker, AGS Interactive. This company aggregates titles from other studios and creates proprietary games. So Delaware bettors will have more fresh options very soon.
Can Rush Street bring this magic touch to the legal sports betting market in Delaware? We’ll find out soon. Now that football season has started, this will be the true test to see how the company is doing on the sports gambling front. If it’s anything like iGaming though, it’ll be good.
