Which US States are Posting the Biggest Gambling Revenue Gains in 2026

Pennsylvania: the $7bn milestone

Pennsylvania closed its fiscal year (July 2025 to June 2026) at $7.01bn in total gaming revenue, up 9.6% on the previous year and the first time any state other than Nevada has cleared $7bn in a single fiscal year. The growth came almost entirely from online products. iGaming rose 18.4% to $2.93bn, overtaking physical slot machines as the state's biggest single category, while sports wagering revenue jumped 35.95% to $662.9m, even as betting handle actually fell slightly. Retail slots, by contrast, were essentially flat.^[2]

Pennsylvania's growth engine is now digital, not the casino floor, and its sports betting margin expansion mirrors a pattern showing up across several states this year.

New York: still the biggest, but volatile month to month

New York remains the largest single market by handle, but 2026 has been a story of swinging hold rates. June's handle hit a record $2.26bn, up 36.4% year on year, yet revenue fell 43.3% because sportsbooks held just 5.19% of wagers, the World Cup punishing operators on results. July flipped the script entirely: handle eased to $1.88bn, but a stronger 11.42% hold pushed revenue to a record $214m and tax receipts to $109.5m, nearly doubling June's take.^[3]

Year-to-date tax revenue has now passed $725m, against $1.32bn for all of 2025.

New York's numbers show why handle growth and revenue growth aren't the same story. At the state's 51% online tax rate, a few points of hold can swing tax income by tens of millions in a single month.

Ohio: a market that's matured

Ohio's monthly handle has flattened since its 2023 launch, but online sports betting revenue is still climbing, up 17.3% for January through April compared with the same period in 2025, and on pace for a record $1.2bn for the full year.^[4]

As in Pennsylvania and New York, the driver has been margin, not volume. March revenue jumped 32.6% year on year even as handle slipped, again down to a much higher hold rate than the year before. Retail betting continues to shrink toward irrelevance.

North Carolina: the newer market still growing on volume

North Carolina tells a different story again. Its market, only in its third year, is growing on genuine handle expansion rather than hold swings. June handle rose 36.1% year on year to $589.6m, and the state has now recorded ten straight months above $500m.^[5]

Year-to-date tax revenue reached roughly $71.7m through June. A tax rise from 18% to 23% takes effect from July, which should push North Carolina's revenue growth rate higher for the second half of the year, regardless of how betting volume moves.

The national picture

New Jersey's gains sit inside a broader run of records. The American Gaming Association's State of the States 2026 report put full-year 2025 commercial gaming revenue at $78.6bn, up 9.1%, the sixth consecutive annual record, with sports betting revenue up 22.6% nationally and iGaming up 27.6%. 

Thirty-four states and DC set individual revenue records last year, so New Jersey's July rise is very much part of the pattern rather than the exception.^[6]

So who's really rising fastest?

By percentage, Pennsylvania's sports betting segment (+35.95%) and Ohio's online revenue pace (+17.3% year to date) are outpacing New Jersey's headline 11.9%. 

But New Jersey's growth is broader based, spanning casino win, iGaming, and sports wagering all at once, and its 6.9% year-to-date total is a more reliable read than any single state's hold-driven monthly spike. 

North Carolina remains the one to watch. Its growth is coming from real betting volume, not variance, which tends to be the more durable kind.