Arizona To Get More Online Sportsbooks

Sports betting has only been legal in Arizona for two years, but it looks like more sportsbooks could soon be coming to the Grand Canyon State. This week saw the Arizona Department of Gaming opening up another licensing session that could see up to three more licenses granted for tribal organizations and sports franchises. 

To begin with, Arizona’s legislators had the capacity to issue 20 licenses for sports betting. These were intended to be split equally between the tribes and the sports companies. However, one of the tribal license bids collapsed and two sporting organizations were refused a license.

This has left the door open for new applicants to get in their bids to the regulators before August 15. Each application will be thoroughly reviewed before the new sportsbooks are announced at the end of the month.

Once a license is granted, each sportsbook will have to pay a licensing fee of $850,000 for the first year, and there will be a $150,000 renewal fee for each year after this.

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Which sportsbooks could be coming to Arizona?

Arizona has already proven to be a successful market for sports betting, and this has meant that there is plenty of intrigue about which operators could come to the Grand Canyon State next.

Major players include the likes of Bet365 and Fanatics who have the financial clout necessary to make a big impact. However, other sports betting brands expected to be monitoring the situation include Underdog, Tipico, Betr and Circa Sports.

Good times for sports betting in Arizona

Arizona is currently the seventh best-performing state for sports betting in the US. The Grand Canyon State has 17 sportsbooks in operation and these have managed to take more than $660 million in sports bets in the busiest months.

What’s most impressive is the pace with which the sports betting market in Arizona is growing. The first quarter of 2023 saw online sportsbooks in Arizona taking a sports betting handle of $1.84 billion which is a 5.6% increase compared to the first quarter of 2022. Such figures produced a very healthy $136.2 million in revenues for the quarter which was a 28% increase compared to the same period last year.

Like many other states, Arizona is dominated by the titans of sports betting – FanDuel and DraftKings – who took in 65% of all sports bets during the first quarter of the year.

However, it’s also evident that smaller operators can carve out a niche in the Grand Canyon State. This is something seen through the success of the local brand Desert Diamond that managed to claim over 4% of the sports betting handle over the same time period.

Despite this, there will be cautionary tales learned from online sportsbooks such as Maximbet and Fubo Sportbook who couldn’t get a foothold in the state and quickly found themselves wound down. But with positive growth figures, it’s expected that Arizona could be getting some brand new sportsbooks before too long.