CINCINNATI — Pennsylvania sent a team to the Super Bowl. But it couldn’t match Ohio when it came to Super Bowl betting activity, based on new data from GeoComply, a Vancouver-based company that verifies the location of bettors for online sports books.
Ohio had 1.1 million unique accounts active on Saturday and Sunday, about 300,000 more than Pennsylvania, home of the Philadelphia Eagles, who lost in the Super Bowl to the Kansas City Chiefs. Ohio also notched 12.6 million geolocation checks on Super Bowl weekend, second only to New York’s total of 13.8 million.
“The numbers in Ohio are definitely trending higher than we had predicted,” GeoComply CEO Anna Sainsbury said. “It’s been quite a tremendous state in terms of really having strong oversight and a competitive market. So, I think what lawmakers intended in the state has been a huge success.”
GeoComply doesn’t track the actual number of bets or amounts wagered. But its data shows how busy online bookies are by counting the number of times a bettor’s phone, computer or tablet contacts an online sports book for “geolocation checks.”
Those checks are required before online sports books like FanDuel and DraftKings can accept a bet. But they can also happen several times while bettors are reviewing options.
GeoComply said it conducted more than 100 million geolocation checks throughout the country on Super Bowl weekend. Within Ohio, Cincinnati had the most geolocation checks, at 1.8 million. But Cincinnati ranked third with 163,000 active accounts.
Cleveland had 1.6 million geolocation checks and 222,976 active accounts. Columbus had 1.3 million geolocation checks and 180,0545 active accounts.
