Sports betting continues to be a money maker for Virginia

HARRISONBURG, Va. (WHSV) - Sports betting was legalized in Virginia just over a year ago, and it continues to be successful in the Commonwealth.

“I love advanced analytics, so my favorite sport is obviously baseball because it’s all just stats and analytics,” Mathew Sherman, a Harrisonburg sports bettor said.

Numbers got Mathew Sherman into the sports betting world, but he took it to another level by creating his own sports betting website.

“I started that as kind of like a source of content for people who didn’t want to do the hours of research every day and wanted to get like the shortcut of player projections and everything beforehand,” Sherman said.

In the first 11 days sports betting was live, Virginians wagered around $58 million.

Now, as of the end of February, The Virginia Lottery reports bettors have wagered a combined total of $4.1 billion, which generated more than $24 million in state taxes.

However, not all states have given the green light to sports betting just yet.

Logan Phelps, a sports bettor from Virginia, recently moved to South Carolina where he can no longer place bets.

“One thing that’s always kind of been interesting to me is like when we go back home, let’s say I’m driving, and he’s like ‘Oh hey let me see if I can place a bet’ or whatever ... goes on there it’s that quick of ‘Oh hey you’re back in the state go-ahead place your bet’,” Logan Phelps, sports bettor said.

With the evolution of sports betting across the United States, what you can bet on has evolved and grown as well.

“You can look at tennis, UFC ... I mean it pretty much covers everything nowadays which is crazy,” Phelps said.

Even down to the peculiar stats can be bet on.

“NBA there’s like a huge edge especially in fantasy sports because there’s like advanced stats like usage rate,” Sherman said.

Copyright 2022 WHSV. All rights reserved.