While legal wagers on the election aren't offered through U.S. sportsbooks, betting operators have launched free contests to drive sign ups and engagement.

Driving the news: DraftKings' $100,000 pool has attracted nearly 400,000 entries, and those who pick the winner overall and in 11 states have a chance to win.

Circa, the first ground-up resort built in downtown Las Vegas since 1980, opens today with what's being billed as the "world's largest sportsbook."

• The book: The three-story, 1,000 seat auditorium faces the world's largest TV screen, and the top floor is filled with media studios, where sports betting networks like VSiN will broadcast live shows.

New Jersey's sports betting market shattered its own national record in September, taking in nearly $749 million in bets.

By the numbers: Online bets accounted for 90.7% of September's handle ($678.7 million). FanDuel Sportsbook/PointsBet topped the market with $25.1 million in gross revenue.

Sports betting stocks have been some of the best performers on the market this year, with DraftKings shares up 466% and Barstool Sports-backed Penn National up 176%.

The state of play: A new survey from CivicScience, provided first to Axios, shows sports betting likely has a great deal of growth potential. But much of that may be baked into already-lofty shares prices.

Barstool Sports was founded in 2003 as a free gambling newspaper. It later became a sports blog before growing into a media empire, and now things have come full circle with the recent launch of its own branded sportsbook.

Driving the news: The Barstool Sportsbook app saw a record 21,000 downloads per day during its first weekend (Sept. 18–20), breaking DraftKings' and Fanduel's daily records despite Pennsylvania being the only state where it was operational.

As sports betting comes out of the shadows and the pool of potential bettors increases, companies are experimenting with ways to target general sports fans.

Why it matters: While some aspects of betting remain complex and require time and research, the basic concept of making predictions is understood by everybody.

For decades, the black market — which consists of offshore sports books and local "bookies" — has been the only option for U.S. sports bettors looking to place wagers.

• Now that states can legalize and regulate sports betting, those offshore books — most of which are located in the Caribbean — are facing competition from well-financed companies running legal operations in the U.S.
• As legal sports betting advances, some believe the offshore market will shrink and become a shell of itself, while others believe the two will live side by side with legal books unable to match what offshore books can offer.

The state of play: Sports betting is currently legal and operational in 18 states plus Washington, D.C. It's legal but not yet operational in four more states, and another seven have active legislation.

Sports media companies are leaning further into sports betting as more states legalize the practice and the NFL and college football seasons kick into gear.

Driving the news: ESPN has entered into separate agreements with Caesars Entertainment and DraftKings, both of which include exclusive link integrations (i.e. affiliate partnerships) across ESPN's digital platforms.

Mike Greenberg's new show, "Bettor Days," debuts on ESPN+ Thursday.

The big picture: The 15-minute show, which tells the stories behind sports betting's craziest wins and losses, is part of a larger sports betting push by ESPN. The company just debuted its new Las Vegas studio, which will host the network's one-hour weekday sports betting show, "Daily Wager," and other related programming.

When the pandemic arrived, the sports betting industry funneled bettors toward the few sports that were actually happening.

What's happening: Now that sports have returned, the industry has benefited from pent-up demand, while also capitalizing on a busier-than-usual summer, with baseball, soccer, hockey, golf and basketball all in full swing.