The Las Vegas Grand Prix generated a historic windfall for sportsbooks, despite causing division among locals and facing legal issues. Despite these challenges, the race still managed to set new company records for total betting handle on any motorsports event. For instance, Caesars Sportsbooks reported a new record for their company, while rival entity BetMGM and local Station Casinos, Westgate SuperBook, and Red Rock Resort also experienced record handle for an F1 race. In fact, Craig Mucklow of Caesars vice president of trading stated that the race generated three times the numbers of Daytona’s NASCAR event. BetMGM also tripled the number of bets for any prior F1 event during the Las Vegas Grand Prix.
However, despite its success in generating revenue for sportsbooks, the 10 p.m. local start time of the race remains a subject of debate. While this time was chosen to minimize disruption to local citizens who had already endured months of headaches due to track construction, several drivers and team executives are pushing for an earlier start to aid their own time-zone acclimation when traveling from Europe. According to ESPN’s report on Ferrari team principal Fred Vasseur, “In the past, we had no issue because F1 was just for European people