New Jersey Sportsbooks Gained Edge in 2025
The most-reported numbers by the media in terms of monthly and annual state sportsbook figures tend to be betting "handle," or amount wagered.
After all, those not only are the largest numbers, they particularly are noteworthy to casual gamblers or to those who never bet at all.
The New Jersey Division of Gaming Enforcement released the full-year results, showing that a total of $12.2 billion was wagered in the state in 2025. That breaks down, for a second consecutive year, to just over $1 billion per month - or a preliminary median total of about $1,300 wagered annually by state residents.
The actual figure would be a little lower once tourist betting dollars are subtracted - yet a little higher once minors under 21 are removed from the estimates.
But the fact that the betting handle was down slightly off the state's record peak of $12.8 billion in 2024 is not the number that sportsbook operators focused on the most. Instead, it was the record $1.18 billion in revenue that was 7.5% higher than in 2024.
"Hold" everything - that's the number that holds the key to bottom lines
The real key for the sportsbooks is the "hold" rate - the amount of money retained by the sportsbooks after all winning bets are paid out. The 9.5% hold in 2025 was a new state record - as was the 19.2% hold on parlay wagers.
Nearly one-fourth of the betting handle came from those heavily-advertised multi-leg parlay wagers that continue to be a cash cow for sportsbooks.
Wagers on professional and college basketball games, which combined for the second-highest level of bets, produced a modest hold rate of 3.8%. Football, at No. 3, returned all but 5.2% of wagers back to those gamblers.
That rise in hold percentage is why a small drop in total amount wagered in 2025 vs. 2024 nonetheless was countered by a rise in sportsbook revenue to $1.18 billion last year. That marked the third consecutive year that this revenue topped the $1 billion mark.
The two biggest sportsbooks in the state proved even more dominant than ever in sports betting in 2025, together contributing to more than three-quarters of the total revenue. Leading in first was FanDuel at $470.1 million.
There were 15 mobile sportsbooks in the state in 2025, with BetFanatics being the biggest movers among the major players - from $22.7 million in 2024 to $82.9 million last year. That rise was nearly enough for relative newcomer Fanatics to overtake BetMGM for third place.
SportTrade, which is a partner of Bally's casino, in 2024 offered proof that not every single sportsbook makes money every single year. SportTrade lost more than $250,000 that year before bouncing back to make $1.3 million in revenue in 2025.
The Ocean casino partner Prime sportsbook reported the lowest revenue in 2025 at just shy of $800,000 for the 12-month period.
Has the New Jersey sportsbook marketplace reached maturity?
A review of the annual figures dating back to the first full year of sports betting in the state in 2019 reveals the state of the industry today.
After $4.6 billion in wagers in 2019, that figure jumped to $6 billion in 2020 and then all the way to $10.9 billion in 2021. But that figure was only matched in 2022, followed by $12 billion in 2023, $12.8 billion in 2024, and then $12.3 billion in 2025.
With most – if not all – of the major sportsbook operators interested in doing business in New Jersey already in place, and with consumer awareness of the gambling option presumably near its peak given the amount of advertising that has been produced during these years, the three consecutive years of similar total wagers suggests that no major jumps in handle seem likely in the near future.
That would mean that the sportsbook operators would need to claim market share away from rivals in order to continue to grow. BetFanatics, which placed fourth in revenue in 2025, appears to be one of the brands to watch most closely in 2026.
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