While it took a long time, the wave of legalized sports betting in the United States has swept across the entire country. Now, over half of the USA is legally able to bet on sports. This has opened up a new, massive revenue source for states and professional sports leagues alike. It is not exaggerating to say that legalizing sports betting from the top sports betting apps has changed the way sports will operate forever.
With a large percentage of sports fans having placed a bet on sports at least somewhere, the amount of money generated is larger than many people have expected. However, which states have generated the most money from sports betting?
Below, we will take a look at the sports betting states that have the most money wagered to date.
Which States Have Legalized Sports Betting
Currently, 34 states, plus Washington D.C., have legalized sports betting in some capacity. Each state has the power to create its own sports betting rules. This means some states do not allow online sports betting from the top sports betting sites while some others do not allow bettors to wager on collegiate sports.
These are the states that have some kind of legalized sports betting: Arizona, Arkansas, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Louisiana, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Mississippi, Montana, Nevada, New Hampshire, New zaJersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Dakota, Tennessee, Virginia, Washington, West Virginia, Wisconsin, and Wyoming, plus Washington D.C.
For states where you can wager online using the best PayPal betting sites, there are generous sportsbook promo codes to incentivize new users to sign up and create accounts.
Which Sports Betting States Have The Most Money Wagered?
It is quite the list of states above that have legalized sports betting in some capacity. However, which sports betting states have the most money wagered to date? These are the top five states in terms of sports betting handle to date. The numbers are accurate as of March 14, 2023.
- New Jersey: $34,809,904,819
- Nevada: $30,468,330,042
- New York: $19,924,968,057
- Pennsylvania: $19,664,446,791
- Illinois: $18,655,587,885
Of course, the states that have had legalized sports betting longer have a bit of an advantage. Below, we will go over which states have the most monthly sports betting revenue to see which states are currently bringing in the most money.
States With The Highest Monthly Sports Betting Revenue Generated
Those are some rather large numbers above. Again, many of those states have had legalized sports betting for some time and have an advantage of new states, so that list isn't exactly reflective of the most popular sports betting states.
With this in mind, let's take a look at the top five states with the highest monthly sports betting revenue generated. The month the reported revenue is from will be in parentheses.
- New York: $149,224,901 (November 2022)
- Illinois: $102,088,548 (October 2022)
- New Jersey: $80,426,931 (November 2022)
- Virginia: $57,531,255 (November 2022)
- Arizona: $55,788,439 (September 2022)
Clearly, sports betting is very popular, as that is a ton of new money generated for each of those states. Hopefully, states without legalized sports betting will look at that list and legalize sports gambling within their borders soon.
