As 2020 draws to a close, one thing is for certain – the NFL is a gold-mine for sports betting operators. Even in its hobbled pandemic form, professional American football is dominating handles in markets that serve Americans of any kind.
This thought is backed up with recent reporting from our colleagues at CalvinAyre.com suggesting that Bodog clocked in 52.3 percent of its action on the NFL last weekend. That number is all the more astounding when one considers that the NFL is drawing the curtain on a pandemic-influenced season that included multiple delayed and cancelled games; scheduling changes that had Americans sitting down on a Wednesday afternoon to enjoyed some NFL football.
Though you wouldn’t necessarily know it from first glance, Bodog and other sports betting outfits were taking action on sports besides American football. American basketball, the NBA, came in second place with 27.3 percent of the action. This may not sound like much, but there was a relatively limited slate of games as the the league launched its new, abbreviated 2020-2021 schedule. Industry watchers expect to see more NBA action this season as more US states bring regulated sports betting online.
One sport that seems to be flying under the radar this season is men’s NCAA basketball. Though college basketball always gets a major boost at the end of the season, it clocked in only about 8.4 percent of the action. More surprising is the fact that college football, which has stumbled into severely pandemic-influenced bowl season, garnered only 4.5 percent of the action.