Legal sports betting operators in the US are riding a heater into the busiest stretch of the year, poised for another string of record-setting revenue reports to close out 2025.
Football betting season has arrived again, and with it comes a huge surge in overall interest from a wave of new and reactivated customers. The next five months of results will go a long way toward determining the winners and losers for the year.
The regulated sports betting industry is on on pace for a record $164 billion in handle across all markets in 2025, up 9.5% from 2024. Revenue looks even better, 17% ahead of the pace and tracking toward $16.0 billion by the end of the year.
These numbers don’t include Florida, a massive market that launched in late 2023 but does not report data to the public.
Biggest markets setting the pace
The top five markets remain unchanged from 2024.
New York is still planted atop the national leaderboard, on pace for a record $25.8 billion in handle and $2.47 billion in revenue—both double-digit increases from a year ago. Running hold of 9.8% would also be an all-time high for the local market should it stick through December.
Illinois is now easily the second-largest market in the country, having opened up a bit of a gap over the rest of the chasers. Its current targets are both up about 15% from 2024, trending toward $15.9 billion in handle and $1.42 billion in revenue for 2025. Substantially more of that revenue is ending up in the state treasury than in years past thanks to a set of recent tax increases out of Springfield.
That puts New Jersey once again in third place ahead of Ohio and Pennsylvania. Those five markets together account for about 45% of all legal betting handle and 43% of revenue nationwide.
Of note: Nevada will likely slip behind Massachusetts into eighth place on the sports betting handle leaderboard and land well outside the top ten in revenue.
Growth not quite across the board
While the industry is as vibrant as it has ever been, a few isolated markets have seen their volume turn slightly downward in recent months.
New Jersey is the biggest of that group. An early adopter and a historical overachiever, the Garden State is finally feeling some thorns from the broader expansion of sports betting (and perhaps the cooling of the regional tourism economy). Its handle target is down 3% to $12.4 billion, but improved margins put revenue on pace for a 10% increase to $1.20 billion.
Three other states are similarly pulling back in volume just a bit over the course of 2025: Rhode Island, West Virginia, and Mississippi. Nevada and Michigan, meanwhile, have handle outlooks that are almost flat from 2024.
In total, 26 markets are positioned for record handle and 27 are tracking toward a new revenue record.
| Market | Handle Pace | ΔH | Revenue Pace | ΔR |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| New York | $25,812,236,733 | +14% | $2,468,248,137 | +20% |
| Illinois | $15,937,900,708 | +14% | $1,421,950,063 | +18% |
| New Jersey | $12,418,001,537 | -2.8% | $1,195,799,315 | +9.2% |
| Ohio | $10,086,948,915 | +14% | $966,201,128 | +7.4% |
| Pennsylvania | $8,931,231,233 | +6.1% | $817,771,889 | +5.1% |
| Arizona | $8,975,447,739 | +13% | $821,551,239 | +16% |
| Massachusetts | $8,378,392,521 | +13% | $867,202,475 | +29% |
| Nevada | $7,899,250,387 | +0.0% | $549,253,555 | +14% |
| Virginia | $7,652,669,037 | +10% | $803,411,888 | +17% |
| Maryland | $6,642,061,168 | +12% | $795,544,083 | +25% |
| Colorado | $6,522,075,650 | +5.4% | $573,778,832 | +21% |
| North Carolina | $6,379,722,420 | +18% | $598,429,062 | +2.5% |
| Tennessee | $5,788,799,977 | +10% | $592,810,460 | +13% |
| Michigan | $5,521,824,085 | +0.2% | $600,591,448 | +28% |
| Indiana | $5,500,882,747 | +5.5% | $559,437,699 | +15% |
| Louisiana | $4,276,202,343 | +16% | $542,989,932 | +16% |
| Kentucky | $3,226,992,132 | +23% | $354,118,373 | +27% |
| Kansas | $2,908,354,205 | +14% | $325,017,418 | +50% |
| Iowa | $2,863,716,574 | +3.4% | $264,756,580 | +21% |
| Connecticut | $2,347,660,119 | +7.4% | $266,875,955 | +15% |
| Oregon | $938,826,685 | +8.6% | $116,748,508 | +24% |
| District of Columbia | $779,069,474 | +69% | $88,085,402 | +64% |
| New Hampshire | $764,207,078 | -3.7% | $93,657,959 | +18% |
| Arkansas | $662,654,560 | +19% | $62,555,152 | +29% |
| Maine | $567,165,878 | +9.1% | $63,582,354 | +19% |
| West Virginia | $450,744,624 | -11% | $55,521,512 | -0.9% |
| Rhode Island | $444,349,807 | -8.1% | $37,507,894 | -1.1% |
| Mississippi | $386,873,930 | -17% | $41,078,497 | +2.6% |
| Delaware | $243,950,379 | +13% | $19,405,808 | +19% |
| Wyoming | $237,450,135 | +13% | $25,879,806 | +13% |
| Vermont | $206,337,670 | +3.8% | $20,576,864 | -6.1% |
| Montana | $68,652,923 | +3.3% | $9,379,879 | +31% |
| South Dakota | $10,492,978 | +14% | $977,285 | +26% |
| TOTAL | $163,831,146,352 | +10% | $16,020,696,449 | +17% |
Revenue rising faster than volume
The gap between handle and revenue growth stems from the rising national hold, now tracking at 9.8% for 2025 to date compared to 9.2% last year. That small bump is significant at such scale, representing hundreds of millions of dollars in incremental revenue for operators even without a corresponding increase in volume.
There is, of course, some inherent correlation between the two metrics in the form of churn.
An increasing win rate for the operator means a declining return to customers and a shrinking pool of player funds available for betting. There is a practical limit to the rate at which this pool can be replenished by deposits, particularly as the well of prospective new customers continues to dry up in all maturing markets.
The most wonderful time of the year
The convergence of NFL and college football creates the most lucrative window of the year for sportsbooks and sharp bettors alike. Increased activity during this period helps sustain operators into the quieter months, as football-first players seek to carry their balances and their betting habits into March Madness and beyond.
At least $20 billion will be wagered on football between now and the end of the year, plus a similar amount rolled up into the parlays that have become so popular among casual bettors. It is that preference for parlays and other long-shot bets that continues to drive much of the revenue growth specifically.
The second half of the year is about more than just football too. Basketball remains the busiest betting sport in the US by volume, and the return of NBA and NCAA men’s and women’s action this winter will make a significant contribution to the totals between now and the end of the year.
Missouri sports betting on deck
The addition of Missouri to the roster of legal sports betting states will happen too late in the year to have much of an impact on 2025 numbers, but it will no doubt help extend the growth trend for the national totals in 2026.
Missouri’s launch is a substantial one. Its population north of 6 million puts it inside the national top 20, and many of its residents already have sports betting accounts at the ready. FanDuel, for example, recently disclosed that it has 110,000 customers who live in Missouri but bet with them in another market. Location provider GeoComply says it blocks millions of attempted transactions from the state every year.
Based on previous LSR analysis, Missouri has the potential to generate close to $5 billion in handle and $500 million in revenue per year. That would be somewhere in the middle of the pack, perhaps just below Indiana and Tennessee.
Betting goes live on Dec. 1, just in time to catch the presumptive playoff push by the Kansas City Chiefs.
