Despite the Las Vegas Grand Prix causing division among locals and facing legal issues, the race ultimately proved to be a historic windfall for sportsbooks. Formula 1 driver Max Verstappen continued his dominance with his 16th win in 17 races, setting a new company record for total betting handle on any motorsports event at Caesars Sportsbooks. Similarly, rival entity BetMGM reported record handle for an F1 Race, tripling the number of bets for any prior F1 event during the race.
The full impact of the race on sportsbooks will be more fully understood next month when the Nevada Gaming Control Board releases its monthly report for November. However, there is still debate over the 10 p.m. local start time of the race, which was chosen in part to minimize disruption to local citizens who already endured months of headaches due to track construction. Several drivers and team executives are also pushing for an earlier start to aid their own time-zone acclimation traveling from Europe, as F1 continues to grow pains in becoming a truly global sport.
Ferrari team principal Fred Vasseur spoke about this issue with ESPN, saying “In the past, we had no issue because F1 was just for European people and we had to stick to European timing, and it was okay.” However, now that F1 is becoming a worldwide project it is much more difficult to find something fitting with the expectations of the 24-hour zone.”
