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American Gaming Association

How Big Is U.S. Sports Betting? The $166.94 Billion Figure Explained

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The U.S. sports-betting market recorded $166.94 billion in wagers in 2025, according to the American Gaming Association (AGA). That is the handle—the total amount wagered—not the amount Americans lost. Fortune’s comparison with movies, music, books and museums makes the market look even larger, but it compares betting handle with those industries’ revenue, so the figures are not like-for-like.

What does the $166.94 billion figure measure?

The AGA reported $166.94 billion in 2025 sports-betting handle and $16.96 billion in sports-betting revenue. Handle is the gross flow of wagers placed; revenue is the amount sportsbooks retain after paying winnings, before other business costs. The AGA’s totals cover commercial, state-regulated sports betting. Its figures exclude tribal-casino sportsbooks and Florida mobile sports betting conducted as tribal gaming. AGA’s 2025 results release and its State of the States summary describe those measures and scope.

Fortune rounds the handle to about $166 billion. It reports that more than 90% of wagered money is returned as winnings. So it would be misleading to say Americans spent or lost $166 billion: the figure counts wagers, including money that can be wagered again after a win.

Is sports betting bigger than movies, music and museums combined?

Fortune says the comparison categories total roughly $70 billion, using North American box-office receipts of $8.87 billion, recorded-music revenue of $11.5 billion, live-music revenue of $18.51 billion, book-publisher revenue of $14.6 billion and estimated U.S. museum-industry revenue of $16.4 billion. On the face of those figures, 2025 betting handle is more than twice the combined amount.

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But that is a comparison of scale, not equivalent industry earnings. Betting handle counts the value of wagers placed; the other figures are sector revenues or receipts. Fortune attributes the book figure to the Association of American Publishers and describes museum revenue as an estimate. The amounts are presented here as Fortune reported them, not as independently verified sector totals. Fortune’s comparison and methodology context make the distinction essential: the headline juxtaposition is striking, but it does not mean sportsbooks earn more than those industries combined.

How much do sportsbooks keep, and what might bettors lose?

The AGA’s $16.96 billion revenue figure is a better indicator of the sportsbook market’s retained betting revenue than handle, though it is not the same as profit. Fortune estimates that legal wagers average roughly $1,000 per U.S. adult and average losses about $100 per adult. Those are broad averages, not a description of a typical bettor: an average can conceal substantial differences in who bets, how often, and with what outcomes.

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Handle growth also does not reveal how many bettors profit or lose, or how betting affects any individual household. In a Fortune interview, College of the Holy Cross economist Victor Matheson described why some bettors may believe additional research can turn betting into a reliable way to make money: “You say, ‘If I just knew a little bit more and studied a little bit harder, I really could make money here,’ because this isn’t craps, where the odds are what they are and I can’t throw the dice in some special way.” His point concerns bettors’ perceptions, not a guarantee that skill or study will overcome the odds.

How did the market reach this scale?

Fortune’s historical comparison puts wagers at $6.6 billion in 2018 and about $166 billion in 2025. Those totals show a dramatic rise, but they do not mean a uniform legal market existed nationwide in 2018. After the Supreme Court’s 2018 decision opened the way for states to set their own rules, sports betting expanded through a patchwork of state markets. The AGA said 38 states and Washington, D.C., had launched legal sports-betting markets by 2025; that count is not a current, state-by-state guide to legality or to which kinds of wagering each jurisdiction permits. The AGA is an industry trade association, so its market counts and descriptions of regulated-market benefits should be understood as its own reporting and perspective. Its 2025 NFL-season release discusses the expansion and responsible-betting principles.

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Could the real U.S. total be higher?

Possibly, but no verified national total in the cited figures combines commercial, tribal and prediction-market activity. Fortune reports that some tribal wagers are not publicly disclosed and quotes Matheson estimating Florida handle at $5 billion to $10 billion. It also reports his estimate that sports activity on prediction markets might add $50 billion to $100 billion. Those are expert estimates, not audited additions to the AGA’s commercial-market total. Fortune describes a total approaching $300 billion as a possibility, not an official tally. Different reporting and regulatory structures make a single all-in number uncertain.

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