Sports Betting Statistics (2026)

Legal sports betting is now one of the fastest-growing consumer markets in America. In 2025, bettors wagered a record $166.94 billion (the handle), up 11.0% from 2024, and sportsbooks kept $16.96 billion of that as revenue, a 22.8% jump (see the tables below).

That revenue is a slice of a much larger commercial gaming industry that hit $78.72 billion in gross gaming revenue in 2025. Sports betting is the youngest of the three big segments (alongside casinos and online casino gaming) but by far the fastest-expanding.

The market barely existed before May 2018, when the Supreme Court struck down PASPA, the federal ban that had confined most sports betting to Nevada. In the partial year after the ruling, legal handle was only about $6.6 billion, spread across seven states (see the chart and table below).

From there the curve is close to vertical: roughly $13 billion in 2019, $21.5 billion in 2020, $57.2 billion in 2021, $93.2 billion in 2022, $119.8 billion in 2023, $149.6 billion in 2024, and $166.9 billion in 2025. Lifetime handle since the repeal has passed $500 billion (Legal Sports Report).

Two numbers get confused constantly. Handle is the total amount wagered; revenue (gross gaming revenue) is what the books keep after paying winners. The ratio between them is the hold, and it has climbed steadily from about 6.5% in 2018 to roughly 10.2% in 2025 (see the chart below).

That rising hold is why revenue is growing faster than handle: revenue jumped 22.8% in 2025 on an 11.0% handle increase. The driver is the parlay, a multi-leg bet with long odds and a fat house edge that now makes up a large share of what bettors play.

Because PASPA left the decision to states, the map is a patchwork. Sports betting is now legal in 38 states plus Washington DC, with about 30 of them offering online or mobile betting, which is where the overwhelming majority of dollars flow.

Roughly a dozen states still have no legal sports betting, including the two biggest prizes, California and Texas, along with Alabama, Alaska, Georgia, Hawaii, Idaho, Minnesota, Oklahoma, South Carolina, and Utah. Missouri became the 39th state to authorize betting, launching online wagering on December 1, 2025.

The market is concentrated in a handful of large online states. New York is by far the biggest, with more than $22.5 billion wagered in 2024, followed by Illinois at $13.9 billion and New Jersey at $12.8 billion (see the table below).

Nevada, the historic home of American sports betting, took in $7.9 billion in 2024 and fell out of the top five for the first time in its history, eclipsed by newer mobile-first markets. The top five states account for about 46% of all wagers placed since 2018.

Two operators run the market. As of early 2026, DraftKings held about 35.8% of handle and FanDuel about 32.0%, a combined 67.8% of every dollar wagered (see the chart and table below). By revenue the concentration is even tighter: FanDuel 44% and DraftKings 34%, or 78% between them.

FanDuel wins on revenue while trailing on handle because it carries a higher parlay mix and a higher hold. The duopoly's grip has loosened slightly from highs near 75% as BetMGM, Fanatics, and others chip away, but the two leaders remain dominant.

Participation has surged with legalization. As of 2026, about 27% of US adults hold an active online sports betting account, and a third have opened one at least once (see the table below). Pew Research found in 2022 that 19% of adults had bet on sports in the prior year.

The intensity among young men is striking: more than half of men aged 18-49 report having a betting account, and Siena finds roughly 46% of them are actively wagering. That concentration is central to both the industry's economics and its social-cost debate.

Sports betting skews young and male. About 69% of bettors identify as male and 31% as female, and participation peaks in the 25-34 age group at 34%, with the 35-44 group close behind at 31%.

Pew also found differences by race and ethnicity, with Black (27%) and Hispanic (24%) adults more likely to bet than White (18%) or Asian American (10%) adults. The typical bettor is a young man engaging through a smartphone app, not a trip to a casino.

The defining shift of this era is mobile. In the pre-2018 world, a sports bet usually meant walking up to a Nevada sportsbook window. Today the overwhelming majority of handle is placed online through apps, which is why states that authorized mobile betting (New York, Illinois, New Jersey) vaulted past retail-only markets.

Mobile also changed the product. Live in-game betting, same-game parlays, and instant deposits are only possible on a phone, and they are precisely the high-margin bets that pushed sportsbook hold from about 6.5% in 2018 to over 10% in 2025.

Tax revenue is why states keep legalizing. Sports betting generated $3.71 billion in state and local taxes in 2025, up 32.4% year over year, and quarterly collections have soared from $190 million in Q3 2021 to $917 million in Q2 2025 (see the table below).

Rates vary enormously, from 6.75% in Nevada and Iowa to 51% in New York, New Hampshire, and Rhode Island. High-rate, high-volume New York alone collected about $800 million in a single fiscal year, and several states have moved to raise rates further (Tax Foundation).

Sports betting is one leg of a booming commercial gaming industry. In 2025 total gross gaming revenue reached a record $78.72 billion (up 9.2%), of which land-based casinos were $50.94 billion, online casino gaming (iGaming) was $10.74 billion, and sports betting was $16.96 billion.

iGaming, legal in just seven states, is the other high-growth story, up 27.6% in 2025. Together, online betting and online casino gaming are pulling the whole industry toward digital, and drove a record $18.09 billion in total gaming taxes for governments.

A fast-emerging rival sits outside the sportsbook rulebook entirely. CFTC-regulated prediction-market exchanges like Kalshi and Polymarket now offer sports event contracts nationwide, including in states that ban sportsbooks. Sports made up more than 90% of Kalshi's activity in 2025 (see the table below).

The AGA estimates prediction markets have already diverted more than $500 million in potential sports betting tax revenue, and total US prediction-market volume approached $30 billion in 2025. Whether these contracts are gambling or trading is now a live legal and regulatory fight.

The flip side of rapid growth is rising harm. The National Council on Problem Gambling estimates 2.5 million US adults meet the criteria for severe problem gambling, with another 5-8 million in the mild-to-moderate range (NBC News).

Helpline demand has tracked the boom: calls to the national helpline nearly doubled between 2020 and 2023, and New Jersey has seen a 277% increase in helpline calls since it legalized betting in 2018. Callers are also getting younger, mirroring the young-male profile of app bettors.

The public market for this theme is narrow. DraftKings and Flutter (FanDuel's parent) are the pure-play leaders, with exposure also available through casino operators (Caesars, MGM, Penn), the leagues and media partners that take advertising and equity, and payment and data vendors. The bull case is a market still adding states and deepening per-user spend.

The bear case is real too: high state tax rates compress margins, prediction markets threaten to skim volume tax-free, and problem-gambling regulation could tighten advertising and limits. As always, none of this is investment advice; a diversified approach beats betting on any single operator.