GeoComply tracks impact on opening NFL weekend

The opening week of the National Football League2022 season has had a huge impact on the betting industry, with geolocation volumes going up to 103.1m, GeoComply shared in a press release over the weekend. The geolocation and fraud-prevention specialist said that the volume was up 71.5% from 2021 when 60.1m such activations were observed.

GeoComply CEO Anna Sainsbury said that there was an "unbelievable" start to the NFL season, much of which is tied to the fact that Americans no longer need to seek offshore sportsbooks to place a wager.

Another contributing factor is that with more states adding legitimate bookmaking operations, many existing customers have learned how to tell licensed operators from those operating offshore, leading to more traffic for the regulated gambling market in the United States still.

"This is exactly the outcome legislators and regulators looked to achieve through legalization as they now protect consumers and increase tax revenues," Sainsbury added, optimistic about the future of sports betting in the United States. A further read into the numbers allowed GeoComply to quickly and reliably pinpoint where the biggest NFL betting volumes came from.

New York accounted for 15.3% of the total activity tracked, which is the biggest out of any state in the US. The state is trailed by Pennsylvania with 14.8% and New Jersey with 13.1% Michigan is next with 9.4% of the total handle and Illinois and Arizona follow with 7.8% and 7% respectively. Virginia posted 5.9% of the total geolocation volumes, and Indiana, Tennessee, and Kansas accounted for 4.6%, 4.5%, and 3.5% respectively.

Kansas’ stats is impressive given that the state is fairly small, and regulation only happened on time for the NFL season. Regardless, the Sunflower State is picking up a lot of momentum. Even though New Yorkers are not going to New Jersey or Pennsylvania to gamble anymore, both the Garden and Keystone State saw an increase in their year-over-year results.

Pennsylvania posted 15.3m total geolocation activations compared to 11.8m in 2021 and New Jersey posted 13.5m versus 12.6m when compared on the same annual basis. Illinois and Michigan also pulled ahead. GeoComply chalked this up to the maturing industry which is making itself known to customers and as mentioned earlier, the fact that offshore bookmakers are losing their clout quickly in the US sports gambling markets, allowing more tax revenue to go to state coffers instead.

Apart from tracking geolocation activity during the betting season, GeoComply is also working hard to ensure that it helps prevent fraud. In July, the company teamed up with Accertify to address fraudulent chargebacks.

Image credit: GeoComply