America's Sports Betting Boom

Eight years after the Supreme Court struck down the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act (PASPA), sports betting continues to boom in the United States. According to the American Gaming Association, gross gaming revenue from sports betting, i.e. total wagers minus winnings, amounted to $17.0 billion in 2025, shattering the previous record set the year before. In total, Americans wagered almost $170 billion on legal sportsbooks last year, up from less than $100 billion three years earlier. According to the AGA, Washington DC saw the strongest growth last year, followed by North Carolina and Vermont, both in their second full year of operations. Missouri, which only joined the legal sports betting market in December 2025, immediately became the fifth largest market in terms of revenue that month.

Following its enactment by Congress in 1992, PASPA had effectively banned sports betting everywhere except for Nevada (and three other states that had certain betting games grandfathered in). In 2012, former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie signed a law allowing betting on professional and amateur sports at New Jersey casinos and racetracks, after which all major sports leagues had sued Christie for violating PASPA. The lawsuit resulted in a long legal battle, which culminated in the Supreme Court’s decision to strike down PASPA in May 2018.

“Congress can regulate sports gambling directly, but if it elects not to do so, each State is free to act on its own,” the court had explained its decision back then. “Our job is to interpret the law Congress has enacted and decide whether it is consistent with the Constitution. PASPA is not. PASPA regulates state governments’ regulation of their citizens. The Constitution gives Congress no such power.”