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Vermont sports betting brings in roughly $3.5M in half a year

State officials say Vermont's online sports betting program has gotten off to a strong start.

Vermonters have made almost four million bets since the program was launched in January, says Andrew Collier, the deputy commissioner of the Department of Liquor and Lottery.

And Collier says that in-state gamblers account for about three-quarters of the $100 million that has been wagered in the past six months with an average bet of roughly $20.

One of the goals of the plan to legalize online sports betting was to shift existing gambling traffic from illegal sites to the state's operation to offer people greater consumer protections and to provide the state with new revenue.

More from Community News Service: Sports betting is big at Vermont colleges. Students say they’re trying to be cautious

Collier says the new data shows that there's definitely a cyclical trend to sports betting.

"You see these big spikes in the fall, winter with football season, with basketball season," Collier says, "and then as you kind of come out of spring into summer it kinds of dies off, if you will, or kind of flattens out." 

Collier says the program has raised roughly $3.5 million in new revenue in its first six months, and $500,000 has been dedicated to problem gambling programs.

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Bob Kinzel has been covering the Vermont Statehouse since 1981 — longer than any continuously serving member of the Legislature. With his wealth of institutional knowledge, he answers your questions on our series, "Ask Bob."