U.S. Sports Betting Handle and Revenue: 2025 Totals

Adam Neal

Adam Neal is a poker industry professional and Head of Sponsorship at ACR Poker, known for his work with poker partnerships, sponsored players, creator programs, and the wider ACR community.

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KEY TAKEAWAYS

• U.S. commercial sportsbooks took $166.94 billion in wagers in 2025, up 11.0% (American Gaming Association, compiled from state revenue reports).
• Sports betting revenue reached $16.96 billion in 2025, up 22.8%, lifting the national hold to 10.16%, up 98 basis points.
• State-regulated sportsbooks generated $3.71 billion in gaming taxes in 2025, up 32.4%; that equals about 21.9% of reported revenue.
• Online sports betting accounted for 96.5% of the market, and New York, Illinois, New Jersey and Ohio remained the top four markets.
• Nevada’s regulator reported $601.4 million in sports pool win for calendar year 2025, up 24.75%, at a 7.45% hold.
• Football produced about 33.8% of Nevada’s 2025 sports pool win; basketball win fell 5.04%.

2025 at a Glance: $166.94 Billion Wagered, $16.96 Billion Kept

U.S. commercial sportsbooks took in $166.94 billion in wagers in 2025 and kept $16.96 billion of it as revenue, according to the American Gaming Association’s Commercial Gaming Revenue Tracker, which compiles state regulators’ reports. Handle rose 11.0% on the prior year and revenue rose 22.8%, lifting the national hold to 10.16%. State-regulated sportsbooks also generated $3.71 billion in gaming taxes, up 32.4%. The figures cover commercial sports betting in the states that report it and exclude tribal sportsbooks. This article lays out the national totals, the derived ratios, a market ranking, and Nevada’s regulator-reported results by sport for the same calendar year.

Revenue grew about twice as fast as handle. Handle increased 11.0% while revenue increased 22.8%, so the share of each dollar wagered that sportsbooks kept rose from about 9.18% to 10.16%, a gain of 98 basis points, or 0.98 percentage points. Online sports betting accounted for 96.5% of the market, according to the AGA. New York, Illinois, New Jersey and Ohio remained the four largest markets. Nevada’s regulator reported $601.4 million in sports pool win for 2025, at a hold of 7.45%.

Handle, Revenue and Hold: How the Sources Define Them

Handle is the total amount wagered. Revenue, which the AGA also calls gross gaming revenue, is the amount sportsbooks keep after paying winning bets. In its State of the States 2025 report, the AGA describes revenue as the gross figure reported by sportsbooks before allowable deductions for promotional spending or free-bet promotions, and notes that state regulators report it differently. Hold is revenue divided by handle. The national hold of 10.16% therefore means that sportsbooks kept about 10 cents of every dollar wagered before taxes and operating costs.

Accounting rules differ by state. The AGA’s 2025 report notes that some states, including Nevada, use an accrual method that includes only revenue from completed events, while others, including New Jersey, use a cash method under which bets on future events are counted when placed and adjusted later. That means monthly and annual totals are not perfectly comparable across states. The AGA’s State of the States report also describes its sports betting total as excluding revenue earned by sportsbooks in tribal casinos and mobile betting in Florida, which is conducted as a form of tribal gaming.

Nevada’s regulator uses its own vocabulary. The Nevada Gaming Control Board reports win, the amount sportsbooks keep in dollars, and win percent, which is the same ratio as hold. Its figures cover nonrestricted licensees and are stated in thousands of dollars. A basis point is one hundredth of a percentage point, so a 98 basis point change equals 0.98 percentage points.

The National Data: 2025 Handle, Revenue and Taxes

Table 1 lists the national figures as published by the AGA for calendar year 2025. Percentage changes are the AGA’s year-over-year changes.

Table 1. U.S. commercial sports betting, calendar year 2025 (U.S. dollars; percent change versus 2024). Source: American Gaming Association, Commercial Gaming Revenue Tracker CY 2025 and press release dated February 26, 2026.
Metric 2025 value Change versus 2024 Note
Handle (amount wagered) $166.94 billion +11.0% Legal commercial sportsbooks
Revenue (gross gaming revenue) $16.96 billion +22.8% Record year
National hold 10.16% +98 basis points Revenue divided by handle
Online sports betting revenue growth n/a +22.0% Online was 96.5% of the market
State gaming taxes from sportsbooks $3.71 billion +32.4% State-regulated sportsbooks

The published figures are internally consistent. Dividing revenue by handle gives 10.16%, matching the hold the AGA reports. The tracker also shows that handle growth was uneven across jurisdictions. North Carolina handle rose 34.3% and Vermont handle rose 18.3% in their second full years of operation, and Washington, D.C. recorded the largest year-over-year increase in legal wagering. Missouri joined the legal market in the final month of the year and immediately ranked fifth by revenue for that month.

Tax receipts grew faster than revenue. State-regulated sportsbooks generated $3.71 billion in taxes, up 32.4%, against revenue growth of 22.8%. The difference reflects state tax rates and the mix of states and channels, which the tracker does not break down in the summary reviewed here. Taxes are reported for state-regulated sportsbooks only.

Breakdown: Online Share, Rankings and Nevada by Sport

Online betting dominates the national totals. The AGA reports that online sports betting represented 96.5% of the market and that online revenue grew 22.0% in 2025. In its market ranking, New York, Illinois, New Jersey and Ohio held the top four positions in both 2024 and 2025. Arizona and Massachusetts each rose, helped by 29% year-over-year increases, while Pennsylvania, Virginia and Maryland each moved down one position.

Nevada is the one regulator in this review that reports results by sport. Table 2 shows the Nevada Gaming Control Board’s calendar year 2025 sports pool win, in millions of dollars, with the share of the total calculated from the published figures.

Table 2. Nevada sports pool win by sport, calendar year 2025 (nonrestricted licensees; millions of U.S. dollars). Win percent equals hold. Share of total is calculated from the published win amounts. Source: Nevada Gaming Control Board, Monthly Revenue Report December 2025.
Sport Win, 2025 Change versus 2024 Win percent (hold) Share of sports pool win
Football $203.5 million +46.69% 7.98% 33.8%
Basketball $144.9 million -5.04% 5.88% 24.1%
Baseball $107.6 million +49.71% 7.18% 17.9%
Hockey $30.9 million +19.97% 8.50% 5.1%
Parlay cards $6.1 million +126.73% 32.59% 1.0%
Other sports $108.4 million +19.82% 9.21% 18.0%
Total sports pool $601.4 million +24.75% 7.45% 100.0%
Memo: mobile sports (all sports) $400.5 million +40.10% 6.97% 66.6%

Football produced 33.8% of the win at a 7.98% hold, followed by basketball at 24.1% and baseball at 17.9%. Basketball win fell 5.04% while baseball win rose 49.71%. Parlay cards, a small category, carried a hold of 32.59%. Mobile wagering, which the report presents as a total across all sports, accounted for 66.6% of the sports pool win.

Comparison: 2025 Against 2024, and Nevada Against the Nation

Prior-year values can be recovered from the AGA’s published growth rates, with a caveat: they inherit rounding and any revisions to the earlier figures. Table 3 shows the results. The 2024 revenue implied by the 2025 tracker is about $13.81 billion, which is slightly above the $13.71 billion the AGA reported in February 2025, a reminder that annual totals are revised as regulators update their data.

Table 3. Implied 2024 values and 2025 values, U.S. commercial sports betting. 2024 values are derived by dividing the published 2025 figure by one plus the published growth rate and are approximate. Source: American Gaming Association, CY 2025 tracker; calculations by WagerFacts.
Metric 2024 (derived) 2025 (published) Change
Handle about $150.40 billion $166.94 billion +11.0% (published)
Revenue about $13.81 billion $16.96 billion +22.8% (published)
Hold about 9.18% 10.16% +0.98 percentage points
Sportsbook taxes about $2.80 billion $3.71 billion +32.4% (published)
Taxes as share of revenue about 20.3% about 21.9% +1.6 percentage points
Effective tax share % = state gaming taxes ÷ revenue × 100

where: state gaming taxes is the AGA’s sportsbook tax total; revenue is the AGA’s sports betting revenue for the same year.

For 2025, $3.71 billion divided by $16.96 billion is about 21.9%. Compared with the nation, Nevada’s 2025 hold of 7.45% was 2.71 percentage points below the national 10.16%, and its win of $601.4 million equals roughly 3.5% of the AGA’s national revenue. Nevada’s win growth of 24.75% was slightly above the national revenue growth of 22.8%. These comparisons mix two publishers and different accounting conventions, so they indicate scale rather than a like-for-like ranking.

Methodology & Limitations

Datasets: American Gaming Association, Commercial Gaming Revenue Tracker CY 2025 and press release dated February 26, 2026 (accessed October 2026); American Gaming Association, 2024 Commercial Gaming Revenue Reaches $71.9B, February 19, 2025 (accessed October 2026); American Gaming Association, State of the States 2025 (accessed October 2026); Nevada Gaming Control Board, Monthly Revenue Report December 2025, twelve months from January 1 to December 31, 2025 (accessed October 2026). Published figures are reproduced as reported.

Calculations: hold is revenue divided by handle; the effective tax share is taxes divided by revenue; implied 2024 values are 2025 values divided by one plus the published growth rate; Nevada shares are each sport’s win divided by the published total of $601,413 thousand. Results are rounded to one or two decimals. The Nevada categories sum to $601,412 thousand because of rounding in the source.

Limitations: the national totals are compiled by an industry trade association from state revenue reports, and the AGA’s own publications show small differences for the same year, so totals may be revised. Commercial totals exclude tribal sportsbooks, accounting methods differ by state, revenue is before promotional deductions, and Nevada reports win rather than handle by sport. Derived 2024 values carry rounding error. The data show how much was wagered and kept, not bettor profits or losses.

Key Figures at a Glance

The table below summarizes the core figures used in this article, each with its period and source. All national figures are for calendar year 2025, and Nevada’s twelve-month figures run from January 1 to December 31, 2025.

Table 4. Key sports betting figures. Sources as listed.
Figure Value Period Source
Handle $166.94 billion CY 2025 AGA tracker
Revenue $16.96 billion CY 2025 AGA tracker
National hold 10.16% CY 2025 AGA tracker
Sportsbook taxes $3.71 billion CY 2025 AGA press release
Online share of market 96.5% CY 2025 AGA tracker
Nevada sports pool win $601.4 million CY 2025 Nevada Gaming Control Board
Nevada hold (win percent) 7.45% CY 2025 Nevada Gaming Control Board

Related Data and Next Steps

Wagering totals come from regulators and are different from participation measures. For survey estimates of how many adults place bets, see the compilation of survey data on how many Americans gamble. Future updates to this series should compare the same definition and period, check for revised totals, and confirm whether a figure is commercial only before comparing it with tribal or other figures. The $166.94 billion handle is the benchmark for 2025.

Frequently Asked Questions

How much was bet on sports in the U.S. in 2025?

U.S. commercial sportsbooks took $166.94 billion in wagers in calendar year 2025, up 11.0% from 2024, according to the American Gaming Association’s Commercial Gaming Revenue Tracker. The figure covers legal commercial sports betting and excludes tribal sportsbooks, and totals may be revised as states update reports.

How much revenue did U.S. sportsbooks make in 2025?

Sports betting revenue reached $16.96 billion in 2025, a record and 22.8% above 2024, according to the AGA. Revenue is the amount sportsbooks keep after paying winning bets, before taxes and operating costs, and before promotional deductions in the AGA’s description of its reported figures.

What is the hold on U.S. sports betting?

Hold is revenue divided by handle. For 2025, $16.96 billion divided by $166.94 billion gives 10.16%, up 98 basis points from 2024 per the AGA. Nevada’s regulator reported a lower sports pool hold of 7.45% for the same calendar year, so hold varies by market.

How much tax did states collect from sports betting in 2025?

State-regulated sportsbooks generated $3.71 billion in gaming taxes in 2025, up 32.4%, according to the AGA. Dividing taxes by revenue gives about 21.9%, a calculated national average that blends many different state tax rates and does not apply to any one state.

Which states are the largest sports betting markets?

The AGA reports that New York, Illinois, New Jersey and Ohio remained the top four sports betting markets from 2024 to 2025. Arizona and Massachusetts each rose, while Pennsylvania, Virginia and Maryland each moved down one position. Missouri ranked fifth by revenue in December 2025, its first month.

How much of U.S. sports betting is online?

The AGA reports that online sports betting represented 96.5% of the market in 2025, with online revenue up 22.0%. In Nevada, which also has retail sportsbooks, mobile wagering accounted for about 66.6% of the 2025 sports pool win of $601.4 million, based on the regulator’s published figures.


Sources & References

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