With mobile betting split across six operators, more than 8.1 million geolocation transactions have been completed and more than 400,000 unique accounts — nearly 6 percent of the state’s 7 million residents — established.
According to GeoComply, Massachusetts was the fifth largest online betting state, behind only far larger competitors New Jersey, Ohio, Pennsylvania and New York.
Virginia, with a population of 8.7 million, has more than 179,000 accounts and only saw 4.4 million transactions over the same period.
Maryland, with a population of 6.2 million, had 5.2 million transactions from its 187,000+ online bettors.
Get sports headlines
The latest sports headlines from The Globe delivered to your inbox every morning.
The turnover figures for the first part of the month of online betting, which began on Friday at 10 a.m., will not be announced until mid-April. They are expected to dwarf sports betting revenue at the state’s three casinos, which began Jan. 31, by an estimated ratio of 80 to 20 percent.
Aside from the fact that it’s easy to set up an account on a phone and then bet on it, another reason for the big numbers in Massachusetts was undoubtedly the concerted effort by the half-dozen operators to get bettors’ attention.
Ads on TV, radio and social media platforms run with a constant and hard-to-miss clip. Complementing the tangible interest were promotional bets that were basically impossible to lose.
For example, DraftKings and FanDuel allowed a bet on whether the Celtics would score a single point in their games at odds of +100, meaning anyone placing the maximum bet of $50 would pay the stake plus $50 got winnings back.
GeoComply also said it prevented more than 5,000 transactions “from devices or accounts with a known history of fraud.”
On Tuesday, the Massachusetts Gaming Commission, charged with overseeing sports betting and traditional gambling in the state, held two hearings on the state’s first sports betting violations.
Both Encore Boston Harbor and Plainridge Park Casino allowed betting on Massachusetts college teams last month. Wagering on the state colleges is not allowed unless they are playing in a tournament.
After a public hearing in which the operators explained what went wrong and the safeguards in place to avoid a repeat, the commissioners will have a private consultation before making a written decision on what penalties, if any, will be imposed.
Michael Silverman can be reached at [email protected]
