If you've noticed sports betting increasingly infiltrating the media and your social circles in the past year, then you'd be onto something based on new data.
The American Gaming Association has a revenue tracker and on Tuesday, February 20, published a study showing that the US sports betting industry produced revenue of $10.92 billion in 2023, up 44.5% from the 7 .56 billion dollars last year.
This is a record figure for sports betting, which was the main reason why the commercial gaming industry as a whole also had a record revenue of $66.52 billion, up 10% from last year.
Slot gaming revenue, which accounts for more than half of total gaming revenue, and table gaming revenue increased by low single-digit percentages, while iGaming increased nearly 23% year over year with revenue of 6.17 billion dollars.
Related: California is a major untapped market for legal sports betting, but it could be just a matter of time
Sports betting also recorded a record in drive – which refers to the total amount that is bet – since $119.84 billion were placed in sports bets in 2023, 27.8% more than the previous year.
A major driver of revenue growth is the entry of new markets, as five new states were added in 2023, including Ohio, which ranked fourth among states with $936.6 million in revenue, and Massachusetts, which ranked No. ninth place with $483.2 million.
There were also significant increases in some of the largest states, such as New Jersey and Illinois, the second and third highest grossing states, each surpassed the billion-dollar mark with annual growth increases of more than 25% each. .
Related: Super Bowl Sports Betting Expected to Top a Whopping $23 Billion, But There's a Problem
But despite enormous advances, there is still plenty of room for growth in the industry. Nearly 40 states have already legalized sports betting, but two important states are still missing: California and Texas.
There are many regulations preventing those states from legalizing sports betting, although FanDuel CCO Mike Raffensperger told TheStreet that he believes these states will eventually open up and that it's more of a question of “when than if.”
Eilers & Krejcik Gaming projected for 2022 that the opening of the California market alone could generate around $3 billion in sports betting revenue, which is almost double what New York, the top sports betting market, generated in 2023.
Related: A veteran fund manager picks his favorite stocks for 2024
