New York customers wagered more than $91.2 billion through regulated mobile sportsbooks between the market’s January 2022 launch and the end of state fiscal year 2026. The total demonstrates how quickly mobile betting became a major part of the state’s gaming economy, but it does not mean operators or New York retained anything close to $91 billion.
The wagers generated approximately $8.3 billion in gross gaming revenue after winning, cancelled and voided bets were deducted. New York’s 51% mobile sports-wagering tax then produced approximately $4.26 billion for the state.
A September 2026 report from New York State Comptroller Thomas P. DiNapoli places those figures within a broader warning about volatility, incomplete responsible-gambling data and the growing competition presented by prediction markets.
The market is large enough to generate substantial public revenue, yet individual sporting results can still produce sharp weekly and monthly swings. That distinction between betting volume, operator revenue and tax receipts is essential when evaluating New York’s $91.2 billion headline.
New York Sportsbooks Handled $91.224 Billion Since Launch
The New York State Comptroller’s sports-wagering report covers activity from the January 2022 launch through March 31, 2026, the end of state fiscal year 2026.
Over that period, the regulated mobile market produced three different financial measurements:
| Measurement | January 2022–March 2026 Total | What It Represents |
|---|---|---|
| Betting handle | $91.224 billion | All accepted wagers before payouts |
| Gross gaming revenue | $8.300 billion | Wagers retained after winnings, cancellations and voids |
| State tax receipts | $4.255 billion | New York’s share under its 51% tax structure |
The difference matters because handle is not sportsbook income. Most money wagered is returned to customers through winning bets. Operators retained approximately 9.1% of the cumulative handle as gross gaming revenue before the state applied its tax.
New York’s tax receipts also should not be described as $8.3 billion. That figure represents operator gross gaming revenue. The state collected approximately $4.26 billion from mobile sports wagering during the measured period.
Annual tax collections increased as the market matured. Mobile sportsbook taxes rose from $727.4 million in state fiscal year 2023 to approximately $1.3 billion in fiscal 2026, an increase of 78.4%.
That performance made mobile sports wagering New York’s second-largest source of state gaming revenue behind the lottery.
Basketball Generated The Largest Share Of 2025 Wagers
Basketball was New York’s leading mobile sports-betting category during calendar year 2025. Customers placed approximately $9.13 billion in single wagers on professional and college basketball, representing 36% of the measured total.
Football ranked second with approximately $5.05 billion, followed by baseball at $4.42 billion. Tennis generated $3.02 billion, while soccer contributed $1.70 billion.
Together, the five sports accounted for approximately $23.32 billion, or 91.9% of single wagers reported for the year.
| Sport | 2025 Single-Wager Handle | Share |
|---|---|---|
| Basketball | $9.13 billion | 36.0% |
| Football | $5.05 billion | 19.9% |
| Baseball | $4.42 billion | 17.4% |
| Tennis | $3.02 billion | 11.9% |
| Soccer | $1.70 billion | 6.7% |
The distribution helps explain New York’s seasonal revenue pattern. Activity generally rises during the state fiscal year’s third and fourth quarters, when the NFL, NBA, NHL and college basketball seasons overlap with the World Series, Super Bowl and March Madness.
The July-to-September period typically produces less activity because fewer high-profile U.S. events are taking place. Major international competitions can disrupt that pattern, as the 2026 FIFA World Cup demonstrated.
New York’s official weekly mobile sports-wagering reports also illustrate why short reporting periods must be interpreted carefully. A major event can raise the handle without guaranteeing more revenue for either sportsbooks or the state.
A Large Handle Does Not Guarantee Strong Sportsbook Revenue
New York’s 2026 NBA Finals provided a particularly clear example of betting-volume and revenue risk.
More than $1 billion was wagered during the two weeks surrounding the Finals. However, sportsbooks recorded a combined net loss of $14.4 million during that period because payouts on winning bets exceeded the money collected from losing wagers.
The result contributed to an unusual June. Mobile sportsbooks accepted more than $2.2 billion in wagers, an increase of approximately $604 million, or 36.6%, from June 2025. Gross gaming revenue nevertheless fell 43.5% to $116.8 million.
Because New York taxes gross gaming revenue rather than handle, the state’s receipts also declined despite the increase in wagering activity.
For the first quarter of fiscal 2027, covering April through June 2026, sportsbook gross gaming revenue reached $565.1 million. That was $83.1 million below the comparable period one year earlier. State receipts fell by $38.6 million, or 12.5%.
The World Cup subsequently produced a different result. Excluding the week that overlapped with the NBA Finals, customers wagered approximately $2.5 billion during the tournament. Handle was $775.5 million higher than during comparable weeks in 2025, while gross gaming revenue increased by $84.8 million.
The contrasting results show why revenue cannot be projected by applying a fixed percentage to every wager. The mix of bets, prices, winning outcomes and customer behavior can materially change what operators retain.
This volatility also complicates state budgeting. New York receives a high percentage of sportsbook revenue, but its collections remain exposed to the same sporting outcomes that affect operators.
Nearly 7.2 Million Accounts Require Careful Interpretation
New York had nearly 7.2 million unique mobile sports-wagering accounts in 2025, according to information reviewed by the Comptroller.
That number does not necessarily represent 7.2 million individual bettors. A person may maintain accounts with more than one licensed operator, and the underlying report did not provide a complete geographic breakdown of account holders.
Of accounts that supplied voluntary age information, 77% belonged to adults between 21 and 44. The largest group was the 25-to-34 category, accounting for 40%.
The average amount wagered per account fell from $4,329 in 2024 to $3,500 in 2025. The average wager was $42.
Those averages cannot describe every customer’s behavior. They combine accounts with minimal use and accounts with much higher activity, while failing to show how spending is distributed across individuals or income groups.
The same limitation applies to transaction data. The Comptroller said more than 2.2 million transactions were recorded in 2025, but the category included interactions such as reviewing balances and browsing markets, not only completed wagers.
Greater demographic and behavioral detail would help regulators evaluate whether participation is becoming more concentrated among particular age, income or geographic groups. It could also support earlier identification of harmful activity without treating ordinary wagering as evidence of a gambling problem.
Mobile Betting Has Overtaken Retail Sportsbooks
New York authorized in-person sports wagering at its commercial casinos in July 2019, more than two years before mobile betting began.
Retail sportsbooks generated approximately $69 million in gross gaming revenue between their launch and the end of fiscal 2026. That was less than 1% of the gross revenue subsequently produced by mobile platforms.
Retail sportsbook revenue peaked at approximately $16.9 million in fiscal 2022. By fiscal 2026, it had fallen to about $5.76 million. Resorts World Catskills stopped accepting in-person sports wagers in June 2025 after handling less than $500,000 during April and May.
The difference reflects more than a change in customer preference. Mobile platforms allow eligible adults to register, fund accounts, compare markets and place wagers without traveling to one of the state’s commercial or tribal casinos.
Retail sports wagering is also taxed differently. Commercial-casino sportsbooks are subject to the same 10% rate applied to table-game revenue, while mobile sports wagering is taxed at 51%.
Mobile wagering’s convenience and higher tax rate have therefore made it considerably more important to New York’s finances than casino sportsbooks. That pattern is consistent with gclubgod.com’s previous examination of New York sportsbook revenue and recovery trends.
Physical sportsbooks may remain useful as amenities inside casino properties, but New York’s figures show that they no longer define the state’s sports-betting market.
The 51% Tax Produces Revenue But Narrows Operator Economics
New York selected mobile sportsbook operators through a competitive process that resulted in a 51% tax on gross gaming revenue.
The rate allowed the state to collect approximately $4.26 billion from $8.3 billion in cumulative operator revenue. It also means sportsbooks retain less than half of gross gaming revenue before deducting marketing, technology, personnel, compliance, payment-processing and other operating expenses.
That structure can influence how aggressively operators use bonuses and promotions, although individual business decisions vary. It may also affect whether smaller platforms consider the market commercially sustainable.
The Comptroller’s figures show that high tax collections can coexist with substantial revenue volatility. A sportsbook can accept billions of dollars in wagers and still experience a weak month if customers win at a higher-than-expected rate.
For New York, the model concentrates considerable revenue in a limited number of regulated digital platforms. That makes consistent reporting, technical oversight and operator financial stability important public interests.
It also creates a potential conflict between revenue goals and consumer protection. The state benefits when sportsbook gross gaming revenue rises, but greater losses among customers should not be treated as an inherently positive policy outcome.
Prediction Markets Could Alter New York’s Revenue Model
The Comptroller also identified sports-event contracts offered by prediction markets as a growing challenge to New York’s regulatory structure.
Traditional mobile sportsbooks operate under state gaming licenses and pay New York’s 51% tax on gross gaming revenue. Prediction platforms generally argue that their event contracts are federally regulated derivatives rather than state-regulated wagers.
That distinction affects licensing, consumer rules, minimum participation ages, advertising requirements and taxation. It could also determine whether activity that resembles sports betting contributes to New York’s gaming-revenue system.
The Comptroller reported that global trading volume across Kalshi, Polymarket Global and Polymarket US reached $208.6 billion during the first seven months of 2026. Sports accounted for 79.8% of Kalshi’s trading volume over that period and 51.2% of Polymarket’s.
These global figures cannot be directly compared with New York’s regulated sportsbook handle. They cover different platforms, jurisdictions, products and reporting methods. They nevertheless indicate how quickly event-contract activity has expanded.
New York’s challenge is therefore broader than protecting sportsbook tax revenue. Policymakers must determine which consumer-protection, advertising and responsible-participation rules should apply when a financial product functions similarly to a sports wager.
Responsible-Gambling Data Has Not Kept Pace With Revenue
The scale of New York mobile sports betting increases the importance of usable responsible-gambling information.
The Comptroller identified 1,887 active participants in New York’s voluntary self-exclusion program. The state permits exclusion periods of one year, three years, five years or lifetime, but the published impact report did not explain how participants were distributed among those durations.
New York’s HOPEline received 2,545 calls during 2025, an increase of 8.5% from 2020. Mobile sports wagering has been the leading reason for gambling-related calls since 2022.
The report also documented 791 attempts by underage individuals to establish sportsbook accounts in 2025. Separately, alleged instances of underage participation using legally created accounts increased from 54 in 2023 to 1,972 in 2025.
These categories measure different conduct and should not be combined. Account-opening controls address whether an underage person can register directly, while account sharing involves access to credentials belonging to an eligible adult.
The state requires sportsbook operators to maintain problem-gambling plans, provide responsible-play pages and display assistance information in advertising. New York also increased the portion of mobile wagering revenue allocated to problem-gambling services from $6 million to $12 million for the current fiscal year.
However, funding and awareness do not replace detailed outcome data. Regulators need information about how customers use deposit limits, time controls, account suspensions and self-exclusion—and whether those tools meaningfully reduce harm.
Anyone affected by gambling-related harm can contact New York’s free, confidential 24-hour HOPEline through the Office of Addiction Services and Supports by calling 1-877-846-7369 or texting HOPENY to 467369.
New York’s Next Test Is Measuring More Than Handle
Surpassing $91.2 billion in mobile sports wagers confirms that New York has built one of the country’s largest regulated betting markets. It also shows why handle alone provides an incomplete description of its performance.
The market produced $8.3 billion in gross gaming revenue and approximately $4.26 billion in state tax receipts through fiscal 2026. Those are substantial totals, but the 2026 NBA Finals demonstrated that a surge in wagering can coincide with sportsbook losses and lower public revenue.
New York’s next phase should therefore emphasize reporting quality rather than headline scale. Operator revenue, state receipts, customer participation, underage access attempts, self-exclusion and requests for support should be evaluated together.
The state has already shown that mobile betting can generate revenue. The more difficult test is determining whether its regulatory and consumer-protection systems are developing as quickly as the market they oversee.
