Regulated NY sports betting operators recorded their busiest June yet, with two marquee multi-day sporting events conspiring to create a big local betting interest.
Total handle came to $2.26 billion, up 36% from last June to a new same-month record. Revenue tumbled 44% to $117 million, though, a foreseeable consequence of the success of both the U.S. Men’s National Team in the FIFA World Cup and the hometown New York Knicks.
The 5.2% combined hold for June was, in fact, an all-time low for New York sportsbooks, according to the NYS Gaming Commission report published Friday.
World Cup betting boosts June growth
The World Cup is so far providing a sizeable bump to US sports betting handle for June, with most early reporting markets showing growth of 10%-30% year over year.
Limited by-sport data from Maryland shows soccer comprising 12% of straight handle for the month there, perhaps providing an approximation of the lower bound of the World Cup’s contribution to New York’s uptick. Soccer volume in Montana accounted for almost 30% of its June total, but both of those numbers ignore the parlays that have come to dominate sports betting in all modernized markets.
The Knicks’ title run no doubt compounded that already outsized betting interest in New York; the gap between successive NBA titles is typically much longer than four years. Context from recent months suggests that New York overperformed its baseline handle outlook for June by at least 30 percentage points thanks to the once-in-a-lifetime convergence of the NBA Finals and the World Cup.
Revenue came in well below the monthly average for the same reason.
BetMGM, Fanatics jockeying for third
FanDuel remains the top brand in the big New York market, but DraftKings continues to inch persistently closer to its national rival. Revenue for the two leaders was separated by less than $1 million in June, with each holding 5.3% of handle for the month.
The race for third place is just as compelling. Fanatics and BetMGM continue to spar over that position, with BetMGM moving back ahead in the revenue column for the first time in more than a year. Fanatics has generally been the stronger of the two brands across most recent timeframes, though, leveraging local success as part of its broader challenge for third place nationally.
Still, the gap between the two tiers remains vast.
NY sports betting on record pace
June’s report closes the books on what will ultimately go down as a modest first half of 2026 for New York.
Operators combined to produce $13.3 billion in total handle from January through June, up 3% from the same period last year.
Revenue was tracking well ahead of the recent pace, with margins on fire through May before June’s results soured the final totals. The half ended with $1.21 billion in gross operator proceeds, down about 3% from H1 2025.
Modeling from LSR puts New York’s end-of-year handle target at a record $27.8 billion, with at least $2.6 billion of revenue potential.
