NFL Season Start Leads to 126% Increase in Online Betting Transactions

• Tech Company GeoComply Reports Record-Breaking Increase in Online Sports Betting
• Since the 2021 NFL Season Began, 26 States Plus DC Now Offer Legal Sports Betting 
• These Eight States Could Launch Legal Sports Gambling Soon

Tech Company GeoComply Reports Record-Breaking Increase in Online Sports Betting

Get this – starting from last Thursday night, which was the opening of the 2021 NFL season, through Sunday at 7 pm EST, it’s estimated that there were a record-breaking number of online sports bets placed, a 126% increase from the same time last year.

That’s according to GeoComply Solutions, Canadian-based fraud prevention, and cybersecurity solutions company that recorded over 58 million ‘geolocation transactions,’ a statistic that has historically acted as an industry indicator of how much online sports betting activity is taking place.

In states where it is now legal to place online sports wagers, bettors must be physically located within the borders in order to make the actual bet, so operators hire a company like GeoComply with access to geolocation technology that uses cellphone data to determine where a phone or laptop trying to make a bet is located.

An increase in activity was anticipated by Lindsay Slader, a managing director with GeoComply, but she was somewhat amazed by how drastic the growth last weekend turned out to be, telling the media:

We expected high volumes, but what we have seen has surprised us nonetheless.

It’s important to note that the data used by GeoComply was only taken across 18 states and DC which does not even represent the full number of states that now allow legal sports betting.

Since the 2021 NFL Season Began, 26 States Plus DC Now Offer Legal Sports Betting

Following New Jersey’s win in the 2018 Supreme Court case that overturned the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act (PASPA), dozens of states have made sports gambling legal within their boundaries, each now legally allowed to set up its own sports betting rules and guidelines.

Since the 2021 NFL season began last Thursday, a total of 26 States plus Washington DC now offer legal sports betting, and we explore in far greater detail which states those are in our special web section called: Where Is Online Sports Betting Legal in the USA?

Some states like Arkansas, New York, and Washington offer retail sports betting locations only, while other states like Arizona, Colorado, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania offer online betting locations as well.

With over half the states now on board with legal sports betting, it’s only a matter of time before the rest of them follow suit.

These Eight States Could Launch Legal Sports Gambling Soon

With so much legal and societal red tape to wade through before legal sports betting can get up and running within a state, it’s no wonder that some of them are lagging behind, missing the all-important launch goal of the 2021 NFL regular season.

Here are eight states that could launch legal sports gambling soon:

• Connecticut
• Louisiana
• Maryland
• Massachusetts
• Montana
• Ohio
• North Carolina
• Washington DC

Each of these states is at a different point in its journey towards launching legal sports betting because every one of them is unique and so are the litigious challenges they face.

What they all have in common is the goal of getting their sports betting operation up and running before the NFL season is over and the lucrative postseason period begins in mid-January.

Check back often for updates on these states and more.