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Americans spent nearly $170 billion on sports bets in 2025, representing more than double the amount Americans spent on movies, books, music, and museums combined last year, a new analysis finds as the betting industry turns to increasingly predatory tactics.
According to an analysis by Fortune, Americans placed $166 billion in sports bets last year, while spending a total of $70 billion combined on movie theater-going, recorded or live music, books, and museums.
The figure, while staggering, doesn’t even include betting in online prediction markets run by companies like Kalshi and Polymarket, or betting in tribal casinos in certain states where they don’t have to report such revenue. It also shot to such staggering heights despite sports betting not being legal in 11 states, and 20 states barring online sports betting.
Fortune reports that the true number spent on sports betting last year could be nearly $300 billion when those alternative avenues are added to the total. This amounts to $1,000 spent per U.S. adult on average, and would put the spending on sports betting at quadruple the amount spent on the aforementioned arts-related leisure activities.
Public health experts have been warning for years that the rapidly growing sports betting and prediction market industries amount to a public health crisis. A study published last month found that diagnoses for gambling-related disorders, including addiction, have risen by 60 percent since 2018 in states that legalized sports betting after the Supreme Court struck down a law that barred betting on sports.
In a relatively unregulated market, sports betting corporations are embracing predatory tactics to keep their users hooked. The industry itself has already drawn in a new demographic of bettors due to the illusion of the bets being more skill- and knowledge-based than, say, playing craps or roulette, one economist, Victor Matheson, told Fortune.
On top of that, the apps track users’ activities and target them with timed promotions and supposedly “free” offers. The apps target consumers who are using the most heavily, experts told the publication, and send them special offers to draw them back in if they stop betting for a period of time.
A recent lawsuit has put the corporations’ special treatment of “VIP” customers on display. In March, a Pennsylvania man named Terry Thompson sued FanDuel and DraftKings after wagering $18.5 million on FanDuel over the course of several years, losing $1.5 million.
Thompson’s high betting volume made him a VIP customer, which meant that the company was sending him special perks, including Super Bowl Tickets and a personalized video message from Philadelphia Phillies player Bryce Harper, one of the top baseball players in the U.S. Harper later said that the company booked the message from the player through the app Cameo and he was unaware that it would be used to further Thompson’s addiction. “Had I known FanDuel’s true intent, I would not have made the video,” Harper said.
Some states are considering regulations on sports betting, and Minnesota passed a first-of-its-kind law banning prediction markets earlier this year.
But a federal judge blocked the Minnesota law this week. And sports betting companies have become the third largest corporate political donors in the country, with DraftKings, FanDuel, Fanatics, and U.K.-based bet365 pouring $72 million into a bipartisan PAC, Win for America, this year alone.
Meanwhile, data has shown that Americans are increasingly going into debt in places where sports betting has been legalized. In a report this April, the New York Federal Reserve found links between the legalization of sports betting and a rise in credit delinquencies, driven by issues like missed credit card payments.
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