The Oregon Lottery’s SBTech-powered Scoreboard sportsbook app has begun its recovery from the sporting shutdown caused by novel coronavirus (Covid-19), with revenue and handle both rising in May.
Turnover for the Scoreboard app rose 64.5% month-on-month to $7.3m, aided by strong consumer interest in table tennis and mixed martial arts (MMA).
Table tennis, which has risen to the fore amid the suspension of other popular sports due to the pandemic, accounted for $3.8m of stakes, with customers placing 76,822 bets on the sport.
MMA, meanwhile, saw stakes grow strongly from April, rising from just $14,850 to $1.0m in May.
The return of soccer leagues such as South Korea’s K-League and Germany’s Bundesliga during the month helped amounts wagered rise to $977,485, making it the third most popular sport within Scoreboard.
In total, 223,325 bets were placed via the app, up from 139,627, with 7,763 players active as of 31 May. The average stake across all sports and markets was $32.64, up 2.9% from the prior month.
Once customer winnings were paid out, revenue for the month amounted to $598,061, a 52.3% improvement on April’s $392,767 total. This growth suggests that Scoreboard is beginning to recover, having seen revenue and stakes fall sharply since February, when turnover stood at $20.9m, and revenue at $1.5m.
The current monthly handle record – of $22.6m – was set in December 2019, with January 2020’s revenue of $1.8m the high watermark for revenue.
Since Scoreboard’s launch in October 2019, customers have wagered $108.0m through the app, generating revenue of $8.1m. This lags far behind the lottery’s initial predictions, published in June 2019.
At that point, it expected stakes to reach $306.2m in the first year, from which it expected to generate revenue of $26.6m after paying out player winnings. A retail component is still to be rolled out across the state, which was originally expected to take place from January, though the lottery has not provided any updates on its progress since.