Americans bet $166B on sports in 2025, more than movies, music, books, and museums combined
Americans wagered $166 billion on sports in 2025, more than the combined revenue of movies, music, books, and museums. Including prediction markets and tribal handle, the true figure could approach $300 billion.
Sports betting has officially eclipsed America’s traditional entertainment industries. Americans wagered $166 billion on sports last year, more than Hollywood, the music industry, books, and museums combined.
The $166 billion number
In 2025, Americans placed roughly $166 billion in bets on sporting events. That is more than the entire U.S. movie, music, book, and museum industries generated in revenue combined.
That works out to the average American adult placing roughly $1,000 in legal bets on sports last year.
How the entertainment industries stack up
The North American box office totaled $8.87 billion in 2025, which is still 22% below pre-pandemic levels. Recorded music revenue hit a record $11.5 billion. Live music like concerts and festivals brought in $18.51 billion. Meanwhile, book publishers tracked by the Association of American Publishers reported $14.6 billion for the year. And the U.S. museum industry generated an estimated $16.4 billion.
Add it up and the total comes to roughly $70 billion, which is less than half what Americans wagered on sports.
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The real number is likely higher
Several states permit betting through tribal casinos, most notably Florida, along with Washington and Wisconsin, which are not required to publicly disclose their handle. Victor Matheson, an economist at Holy Cross who studies sports gambling, said Florida alone accounts for somewhere between $5 billion and $10 billion. The $165 or $170 billion number is low, he told Fortune.
That figure also excludes sports wagering flowing through prediction market platforms like Kalshi and Polymarket, which have rapidly expanded into sports contracts since gaining federal regulatory clearance. Matheson estimated that activity could represent another $50 billion to $100 billion in handle.
Put together, the true volume of American sports wagering in 2025, legal sportsbooks plus prediction markets plus unreported tribal handle, could approach $300 billion.
Where the losses actually land
Handle is gross throughput, not consumer expenditure: over 90% of what is wagered gets returned to bettors in the form of winnings. That $1,000 in bets translates to roughly $100 in average losses per adult.
Losses are not spread evenly across the betting population. Roughly 95% of total losses are absorbed by just 5% of bettors, a small cohort of heavy users whose spending looks nothing like the casual fan putting $20 on a Sunday parlay.
Conway, who spent three decades as a senior executive at Major League Baseball, the Baltimore Orioles, the Texas Rangers, and AOL, said the platforms are engineered to identify and retain exactly those heavy users.
Options market and stocks to watch
Watch DKNG and FLUT as the two largest US online sportsbooks, both direct beneficiaries of the continued shift in consumer entertainment dollars into wagering.
Watch MGM, CZR, and PENN for the omnichannel casino-plus-digital angle, along with any regulatory headlines around tribal handle disclosure or prediction market oversight.
Also worth monitoring: legacy media names tied to the box office and music industries, which are quietly losing share of wallet to the sportsbooks. Track it all through the latest market news.
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