New York is scoring big — online sports betting is the state’s new cash cow.
Sports wagering is now the second biggest revenue generator for New York State coffers from the gaming industry, exceeding $1 billion a year in taxes and trailing only the lottery,a new report found.
The jump in gaming revenues the past few years is totally attributable to mobile sports betting, while other forms of gambling have declined or are flat, according the analyisis releasedWednesday by state Comptroller Tom DiNapoli
“Over the past decade, New York’s gaming revenues have grown by 32.7 percent, driven almost entirely by the growth in collections from mobile sports wagering since its legalization in 2022. In contrast, revenues from all other forms of gaming have collectively slipped, declining by 0.8 percent,” the report said.
Collections from the 51% tax on gross gaming revenue from sports betting increased 78% between fiscal year 2023 ($727.4 million) and fiscal year 2026 ($1.3 billion).
A staggering $91.2 billion in mobile sports bets have been placed — generating $8.3 billion in tax revenue to state — since the launch in January 2022.
There were about 7.2 million unique mobile sports wagering accounts in New York last year, mostly bettors between the ages of 21 and 44.
More than 2 million transactions were placed on the mobile sports wagering platforms in 2025, with the average amount wagered $3,500.
Five sports accounted for over 90 percent of all mobile sports bets, led by basketball, football, baseball, tennis and soccer.
Not surprisingly, placed bets increase during the Major League Baseball World Series, the National Football League Super Bowl and the National Collegiate Athletic Association Basketball Tournament (“March Madness”).
While the bookie usually wins, the Knicks basketball championship run made bettors winners, too.
The Knicks were considered underdogs against the San Antonio Spurs in the finals, and many believers put their dough behind New York’s team.
“During these two weeks (the finals), over $1 billion in mobile sports wagers were made, but gross gaming revenue during this time reflected a net loss of $14.4 million, a consequence of winning wagers paid out exceeding wagers received,” the report said.
“While it has become the second-largest source of revenue from gaming, mobile sports wagering has exhibited volatility. The 2026 NBA Finals demonstrated how large winning wagers associated with high odds can sharply reduce gross gaming revenues and, in turn, the collections from the tax on those revenues.”
There are six different types of gambling in New York: horse racing, the lottery, slot machines or video lottery terminals (VLTs), commerical and tribal casinos , mobile and retail sports betting and interactive fantasy sports.
The state collected over $5.1 billion from lottery sales and taxes on other gambling, $1.3 billion, or 33%, higher than ten years earlier.
Lottery games that include Powerball accounted for 47.3%, or nearly half of all gambling revenues last year.
The growth of mobile sports betting has come at the expense of in person-sports wagering in the state’s commercial casinos (Rivers, Del Lago, Tioga Downs and Resorts World Catskills), which are taxed at a significantly lower 10% rate.
Gaming revenue from in-person sports wagering totaled $69 million since 2019, less than 1% of the total from mobile sports wagering.
Meanwhile, the report highlighted the emergence of the less regulated but ballooning prediction markets, with most trading focused on sporting events.
“Whether this activity has had an impact on mobile sports wagering in the state is currently unknown. However, its growth may pose a risk to the revenues the State collects from mobile sports wagering,” DiNapoli’s report said.
Kalshi and Polymarket are the leading prediction betting platforms with wagers based on the outcome of real-world events, including sporting events.
The report said litigation determining whether the state and the federal government can regulate prediction markets will determine future state revenues.
The post Online sports betting emerges as NY cash cow — generating billions in tax revenue appeared first on New York Post.
