Sportsbooks turned $440m into $16.69bn in seven years as revenue grew even faster than betting volume
The latest Playerstime research suggests the most striking number in US sports betting is not how much Americans wager, but how much sportsbooks now keep. According to the report, annual sportsbook revenue rose from $440 million in 2018 to $16.69 billion in 2025. That is a 3,673% increase, outpacing the already huge rise in national betting handle over the same period.
That gap matters because it points to a market that is not only getting bigger, but also becoming more efficient at converting wagers into operator revenue. Handle increased 2,387% from 2018 to 2025 in the report, while revenue climbed 3,673%. In simple terms, sportsbooks have grown the amount bet and improved how much they generate from that betting activity.
Playerstime ties part of that revenue acceleration to product mix. The report says operators such as DraftKings and FanDuel have improved margins by heavily promoting same-game parlays, player props and other multi-leg bets, all of which gained popularity after legalisation spread. Those bet types typically carry richer margins than straight wagers, which helps explain why sportsbook revenue has risen faster than handle.
The American Gaming Association’s 2025 tracker points in the same direction. It says sports betting revenue rose 22.8% year on year to $16.96 billion in 2025, while national hold increased by 98 basis points to 10.16%. The AGA also says online sports betting represented 96.5% of the market’s revenue share, a sign that digital betting is now doing most of the heavy lifting for industry earnings.
Playerstime identifies 2021 as the most dramatic single-year jump in revenue, with an increase of 180% as sportsbook revenue rose by $2.79 billion. That period captured the early momentum of expansion, but the larger story is what happened after: the market did not flatten out once the first wave of launches passed. It kept scaling into a far larger commercial business.
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