Total Gambling Spend Reached $172 Billion In 2024 Across The US

The US has long been regarded as the world’s capital of gambling with Las Vegas as its epicentre. Even though Macau now outstrips Vegas in terms of revenue, it’s Sin City that maintains its reputation as the world’s most famous gambling city. That’s not to say the rest of the country isn’t equally keen on the activity as a report released by Eilers & Krejcik Gaming showed.

In 2024 all forms of the activity generated a staggering $172 billion in revenue. This represented an overall annual increase of 3.3% with certain sectors achieving far more than this. The relatively under-developed online market meant that commercial casinos, of the type found in places like Vegas and Atlantic City, and tribal casinos accounted for the majority of the $172 billion at 56%.

Lotteries remain popular across the whole country and spending on these accounted for 22% of the total. Looking at online gambling, it was in the sportsbook arena that the biggest year on year increases occurred at 34%, probably given a boost by North Carolina and Vermont launching sports betting for the first time. Almost as impressive was online casino and poker which saw a 29% rise. Online lottery play also saw a double-digit rise at 26% - although it still only accounted for a very modest 1% of the total gambling spend for the year.

Looking over the longer term and the 5-year compound annual growth rate, it was online sports betting that has shown the most spectacular results coming in at 96%. Online casino and poker have achieved 74% with online lotteries’ revenue increasing by 45%. As for gambling in the country as a a whole, the overall compound annual growth rate between 2019 and 2024 was 7.3%.

The driving force behind the growth

Traditional casinos continue to be popular in the US attracting fans not just from the country, but around the world. 2024 saw 41.7 million visitors heading for Las Vegas attracted by its big name casinos, and big name shows. Tribal casinos have also proved to be popular across all of the states in which they feature. But the increasing use of online casinos has been where the truly dramatic growth has been seen.

Online casinos enable players to enjoy all the excitement of the land-based alternative but with a number of advantages. The first of these is obviously that it saves the need to travel to play. Instead, all of the traditional casino games of roulette, blackjack, baccarat and slots are available 24/7, 365 days a year. The addition of the “live” casino element has also meant that, with games being streamed directly to players, it closely replicates the authentic casino experience.

The number of online casinos now available has meant comparison sites like Casino.us have started to appear, they find the best US online casinos, so players don’t have spend too long searching, while also listing the welcome incentives that they offer to new players. There are also in-depth reviews of the different sites covering all aspects of their operation from the range of games available to the methods of payment on offer.

Ever since the Supreme Court’s landmark ruling in May 2018 to allow legal sports betting this has also become increasingly popular. Naturally, the biggest surges in betting occur when there are major events like the Super Bowl or the soccer World Cup. Figures suggest that around 30% of adult Americans placed a bet on their favourite sport last year with football and basketball being the two main ones, closely followed by baseball.

Casino v Sports

Although sports betting is increasing in popularity, it still lags a considerable way behind online casinos in terms of the revenue that it generates. Even with a year on year increase currently running at 34% it will take quite some time to reach parity if, indeed, it ever does. As to why the gap remains so wide, there may be a number of reasons. Essentially, playing in a casino is likely to appeal to many more individuals than betting on sports. It also involves making multiple bets over the course of a session while sports bets tend to be one-offs that are only decided on at the end of the game.

Sportsbooks are trying to address this by offering an increasing number of in-play options such as which player will get the next touchdown in a football game. Looking to the future, a number of states including Virginia and Maryland are though to be considering legalising online casinos. As for the casinos themselves, they will be looking to enhance the player experiences.

So exciting times are ahead for gambling in the US – and we can fairly confidently predict that the total revenue figure for 2025 will be significantly more than $172 billion

By GamesAndCasino