Record wagering in the country’s largest market produced its thinnest margin yet, and the state’s education fund collected $46 million less than a year earlier.
- New York’s mobile sportsbooks took a record June handle of $2.25 billion, up 36.6% over last June.
- Gross gaming revenue fell to $116.8 million from $206.5 million as the hold sank to 5.18%.
- The state’s education fund collected $59.6 million in taxes on that revenue, down 43% from a year earlier.
- The World Cup’s short-priced favorites drew heavy recreational money that paid out through June’s group stage.
Schenectady, N.Y. – New York’s mobile sportsbooks took a record $2.25 billion in bets in June, but the World Cup’s steady favorites held the industry’s margin to 5.18%, cutting the state’s sports-betting tax take to $59.6 million, down 43% from a year earlier, according to New York State Gaming Commission figures.
A record handle, a record-low hold
The nation’s biggest betting market was the first to post a June scorecard, and it captured the paradox the World Cup has handed sportsbooks: more money wagered, less money kept. New Yorkers bet $2,253,568,545 in June, the Gaming Commission reported, up from $1,649,539,166 a year earlier and a record for the month.
Gross gaming revenue moved the other way, falling to $116,764,161 from $206,510,168 in June 2025. The gap was the hold, the share of every dollar wagered that the books keep. It came in at 5.18%, down from 12.5% a year earlier and the lowest of any month since New York’s mobile market launched in January 2022. Regulated mobile betting in New York is now in its fifth year, and June was its weakest month for margin on record.
The World Cup math
The tournament opened June 11 and its group stage ran through June 27, according to FIFA, covering nearly the entire reporting month. Group play pairs powerhouses against overmatched sides, so favorites are priced short and recreational money piles onto the chalk, often stacked into parlays. When those favorites win, as they largely did through the round, the tickets cash and the books pay. The result is a flood of handle at a punishing margin.
Pre-tournament projections that the World Cup could draw $50 billion in bets worldwide are now meeting the ledgers, and the first hard number from a major US online gambling market shows the volume arriving without the profit.
The tax hit
Because New York taxes mobile gross gaming revenue at 51% and directs it to education, the state’s receipts tracked the revenue drop almost exactly. The fund collected $59,564,366 in June, against $105,320,186 a year earlier, a decline of about $45.8 million even as bettors wagered roughly $604 million more than they did last June.
New York’s cash-basis accounting recognizes payouts in the period bets are settled, so a month of favorites cashing lands squarely on the same month’s revenue. Reports from New Jersey, Illinois and other large markets, still to be released for June, will show whether the same pattern held nationwide.