Table Tennis Generated Half Of Oregon’s $7.3M In Betting Handle

Russian table tennis attracted total wagers of $3.75 million in May, accounting for 51.5% of the Scoreboard $7.29 million overall handle.

Oregon Lottery’s online sportsbook accepted 76,822 Scoreboard table tennis wagers from 1,789 different players last month.

The average table tennis bet was $48.85.

The wagering trend toward Scoreboard table tennis wagers began in mid-April, as indicated by a tweet from the Oregon Lottery on April 25:

Rounding out the top eight sporting events with the highest handles in May are the following:

• MMA: $1.03 million
• Soccer: $977,485
• Baseball: $529,331
• Golf: $262,809
• Tennis: $309,881
• Motor racing: $168,876
• Darts: $229,428

Bettors placed more than 223,300 wagers on 18 different sports last month. Handball, ice hockey, boxing, cricket, Australian football and rugby (union) picked up fewer than 50 bets apiece.

With professional sports leagues out of action since early March because of COVID-19 constraints, bettors have been hard-pressed for wagering options.

Thankfully, that situation has improved in recent weeks.

NASCAR, UFC, and PGA golf tournaments are already back in action. A number of other professional leagues have announced plans to resume in the near future. For example, Major League Soccer is set to hold a 26-team tournament in Orlando, Florida, beginning July 8.

Scoreboard wagers by the numbers

Despite its many difficulties, the state’s sole digital sportsbook continues to see players register for new Scoreboard accounts every month.

Nearly 570 new players registered for accounts in May. The sportsbook’s gross profit for the month was nearly $600,000.

In total, more than 7,750 individual bettors placed over 223,300 wagers, with an average bet of $32.64.

The operator’s overall profit margin was 8.20% for the month.

Sporting events with the lowest holds were table tennis (5.36%), baseball (5.83%), and soccer (6.60%).

Of the top five sports with the month’s highest handles, the most hold for Oregon Lottery resulted from wagers on MMA and golf. The two sports had 19.31% and 17.05% margins, respectively.

Traditionally, pre-match bets and live betting action split the overall handle fairly evenly.

However, 7,280 unique bettors placed 141,154 pre-match wagers, with an average bet of $21.77. Meanwhile, 3,692 players placed 82,171 live bets with an average wager of $51.32.

Scoreboard still reeling after rocky start

Oregon Lottery’s Scoreboard has had to overcome a number of well-documented difficulties on top of the coronavirus crisis since its launch in October 2019.

The sportsbook lost $1.57 million in its first six months of operation, despite accruing net revenue of more than $6.9 million.

Oregon Lottery’s platform provider, SBTech, has been criticized for excessive service fees.

The full terms of the contract were only released after a long court battle with members of the media.

The office of the Oregon attorney general eventually ordered SBTech to release the contract to the public in its entirety.

At the end of March, SBTech was next targeted by a sophisticated cyberattack.

The platform provider was forced to shut down Scoreboard, as well as more than 50 additional gaming sites around the globe. A number of SBTech’s US partners had to remain offline for three weeks.