Is NBA Betting About to Overtake the NFL in US Sportsbooks?

The Market Boom Time

In 2019, the first full year of nationally legal sports, the whole industry handled just $13 billion ^[1]. Fast forward to today, and the handle is $166.94 billion, and books are pulling in $16.96 billion in revenue. In just six years, the industry has grown more than twelvefold ^[2].

NFL Handle

The AGA publishes an annual NFL season wagering estimate. For the 2025 season, the AGA projected$30 billion ^[3]. These figures cover the preseason, regular season, playoffs, and the Super Bowl. No other sport comes close on a per-game basis, as the NFL plays fewer than 300 regular-season games a year and still moves tens of billions. 

Credit: DraftKings Sportsbook – Screenshot captured by Chad Nagel on May 18

Around 60% of US sports bettors wager on football, and 63% of NFL bettors plan to bet on at least one game per week throughout the season ^[4]. At top tier NFL sportsbook operators, the Super Bowl alone drove an estimated $1.39 billion in legal wagers for Super Bowl LIX. The NFL's grip on American sports betting culture is real.

The AGA has never published an equivalent NBA season wagering estimate. There is no official national figure for how much Americans bet on basketball each year. That data gap has allowed the assumption that the NFL dominates to go largely unchallenged.

Estimating NBA Handle

Without a national NBA figure, the best primary source available is New Jersey. The Division of Gaming Enforcement (NJDGE) publishes monthly handle broken down by sport.

In 2025, basketball led all single-sport categories in New Jersey, with $2.7 billion in yearly handle for the year, even more than football ^[5]. New Jersey's total handle in 2025 was approximately $13 billion and basketball accounted for roughly 20% of all sports betting handle.

Now, that $2.7 billion includes both NBA and NCAA basketball. Deducting an estimate for college basketball, March Madness alone accounted for $3.1 billion nationally in 2025 ^[6], and applying the same NJ market share suggests roughly $240-300 million of NJ's basketball handle came from the college game. So the NBA-specific handle in New Jersey was likely in the range of $2.3-2.4 billion.

Credit: DraftKings Sportsbook – Screenshot captured by Chad Nagel on May 18

New Jersey represents approximately 8% of the national sports betting market by handle. Extrapolating that NBA figure nationally produces an estimated NBA handle of around $28-30 billion for 2025, which puts it right alongside the NFL.

New Jersey skews toward basketball, given its proximity to New York's NBA teams. The real national number could be somewhat lower. But even accounting for that, the gap between NFL and NBA handle looks to be a matter of a few billion dollars at most.

Why the NBA Is Surging

The NBA plays 1,230 regular-season games from October through April and then runs playoffs through June. The NFL plays fewer than 300 regular-season games. More games equals more betting markets, more live wagers, and more same-game parlays.

The NBA also tilts younger. Sportradar found that 40% of Gen Z adults have a favorite NBA player, the highest figure for any major US sport ^[7]. Also, in 2023, NBA fans wagered 3.7 times more than the average American sports bettor ^[8]. 

Basketball is projected to grow at the fastest compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of any sport in US betting through 2030, powered by live betting, player prop markets, and increasing mobile penetration.