Maryland Seeing Increase in Sports Betting Options

Sports betting in Maryland is about to add another sportsbook to its burgeoning market. 

SuperBook Sports recently received initial approval from the Maryland Lottery to offer retail and mobile sports betting in the Old Line State. The mobile sportsbook operator has a few more steps before officially launching joining the Maryland sports betting landscape. Still, all necessary approvals could come as early as the end of February.

SuperBook Sports already has an existing retail sports betting partnership with Camden Yards – the home of the Baltimore Orioles, which said that it plans on opening a sports betting lounge at the stadium in the next year. It is also currently live in Ohio, New Jersey, Arizona, Tennessee, Colorado, Iowa, and Nevada.

Other sportsbooks waiting to launch in Maryland

Fanatics Sportsbook just launched its retail sports betting offering at FedEx Field - the first-ever retail sports betting site to be located inside an NFL stadium - and is reportedly in talks to buy betPARX so it can launch a mobile sportsbook in Maryland.

betPARX was one of the first operators to be granted a mobile sports betting license by the Maryland Sports Wagering Application Review Commission (SWARC) when the state officially launched online sports betting just before Thanksgiving 2022.

The SWARC also awarded mobile sports betting licenses to BetFred, WynnBET, and Bally Bet around that time but these three operators have yet to launch their mobile sportsbooks. On Jan. 26, the Maryland Lottery approved Crab Sports for a mobile sports betting license.

Crab Sports is a sports betting startup that plans to offer Maryland bettors a local sports betting product, and has partnered with Gaming Innovation Group to operate its mobile betting platform.

Maryland sports betting has seven mobile sportsbooks in action right now - DraftKings, FanDuel, Barstool Sportsbook, Caesars, BetMGM, PointsBet, and BetRivers - and it could see as many as 20 mobile sportsbooks live by the end of this year.

Maryland law allows the SWARC to award up to 60 licenses for mobile sportsbooks, so bettors can get excited for even more Maryland sports betting bonuses coming down the pike when these new operators finally launch. 

Maryland retail sports betting stands tall

Maryland sports bettors have enjoyed retail sports betting since December 202, with 10 retail sportsbooks currently in operation.

These ten retail sites include the best sportsbooks in the country with known names BetMGM at MGM National Harbor, FanDuel at Live! Casino & Hotel, Caesars at Horseshoe Casino, and Barstool Sportsbook at Hollywood Casino Perryville. The other retail sports betting sites are operated by PointsBet, TwinSpires, BetRivers, betPARX, and Betfred.

In total, 17 entities were designated in Maryland’s sports wagering law to operate retail sportsbooks so more could be on the way this year. Maryland residents living close to the DC area can also enjoy the new Fanatics Sportsbook at FedEx Field and BetMGM at National Harbor, but can also head into the District for retail sports betting experiences at Capital One Arena, Nationals Park, and Audi Field.

The Caesars Sportsbook at Capital One Arena offers 18,000 square feet of dining and entertainment space and in May 2021 became the first sportsbook located inside a professional sports arena in the United States.

The BetMGM Sportsbook at Nationals Park is open year-round, and the FanDuel Sportsbook at Audi Field - home of Major League Soccer’s DC United - uniquely offers a view of the soccer pitch which is a feature that the sportsbooks in the area’s other stadiums cannot tout. Not only are all of these venues enticing entertainment options, but bettors can also use the respective mobile sportsbooks when within a two-block radius of each site.

Mobile sports betting a difference-maker in Maryland

Between December 2021 when it first started taking legal bets at retail sportsbooks and October 2022, Maryland bettors generated just shy of $281 million in total handle with an average of about $25 million wagered monthly.

When mobile sports betting in Maryland finally went live in November 2022, operators in the state collected over $219 million in total handle in that month alone, and that number skyrocketed to over $497 million in December.

October 2022 was already a record-breaking month for Maryland generating nearly $40 million in total handle, – so despite bettors waiting for a calendar year between the November 2021 vote that approved sports betting and the actual activation of the mobile sports betting market, the Old Line State looks to have the burgeoning infrastructure to be a consistently strong presence in the industry.