New York Sportsbooks Pay Hefty "Knicks Tax"
While sportsbooks across the U.S. nearly always make money in a given week or month, there is one phenomenon that tends to reverse that trend: a local sports team winning a championship.
Just ask the New York State sportsbook operators, who lost a staggering $48.5 million collectively in the week ending June 14 as the New York Knicks earned their first NBA title in 53 years.
Throw in an impressive U.S. men's soccer team 4-1 World Cup victory over Paraguay on June 12, and you have a full-fledged recipe for sportsbook debacles.
The books took in a staggering $587.6 million in wagers in that seven-day period (more than double the same week in 2025), and FanDuel's $22.6 million loss accounted for nearly half of the collective deficit.
Bettors wagered $220.8 million on their FanDuel accounts, and the June 8-14 losses left FanDuel barely breaking even for a three-week period.
The next-biggest sportsbook deficits
FanDuel Sportsbook isn't the only one. Another major sportsbook wound up with a deficit of $14 million after residents and visitors placed a total of $197.6 million worth of bets.
After retaining between $14 million to $26 million per week in a period of nine weeks ending on May 24, its net gain for the next two weeks - as the Knicks' playoff success accelerated - failed to reach the $10 million mark.
Add in the June 8-14 disaster, and the sportsbook barely averaged $1 million per week over a three-week period.
Another sportsbook took a loss of $5.8 million on betting handle of $67.3 million, while yet another dropped $3.7 million on a betting total that was ten times that number.
One sportsbook had a more modest $2.5 million on a $44.7 million betting handle, and at another, the deficit was a manageable $13,412 on $8.8 million wagered.
Surprisingly, two of the state's eight sportsbooks actually mustered tiny profits in spite of the success of the Knicks and U.S. soccer team.
One of the two kept $41,379 out of a $9.7 million betting handle, while the second's $104,046 net gain on $2.9 million in wagers was an industry-best for the week.
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Bettors won in New York - and not only sportsbooks lost
For context, the New York sportsbook industry's gross revenue in calendar year 2025 was $2.55 billion – working out to an average gain of almost $50 million per week.
That figure resulted from a 9.7% "hold rate" - the amount retained by the sportsbooks after payouts to winning bettors - that rose from 9% in 2024.
Thanks to New York's industry-leading tax rate of 51%, the state collected $1.32 billion in tax revenue in 2025 - well over double the number in any other U.S. state.
That works out to $25.3 million in taxes raised per an average week. But when the sportsbooks don't have any revenue, they don't pay taxes.
The meager winnings by two sportsbooks will net the state under $75,000 in total taxes for the week.
Other "bettors have the last laugh" examples
In 2019, the New England Patriots - by far the most popular team in Rhode Island - defeated the Los Angeles Rams in the Super Bowl. With 86% of wagers riding the Patriots, the state's sportsbook lost $2.4 million in one day.
In 2025, the Super Bowl matchup was the Philadelphia Eagles against the Kansas City Chiefs, who are a major rival to the Patriots.
In New Hampshire, where the Patriots also are the preferred NFL team, more than $7.5 million was wagered on the game. Almost 90% of those who bet on the outright winner on the state's only legal sportsbook - correctly chose the Eagles to defeat the despised Patriots.
As for the Chiefs, their 2023 and 2024 Super Bowl appearances led to lackluster profits for sportsbooks in each February in Kansas - which at the time lured many Kansas City, Missouri residents over the nearby state line to wager.
In the first of those two contests, Kansas sportsbooks took in $185 million in bets and retained a hold of just $1 million. The following year was a similar story, with the sportsbooks retaining a modest $3 million for the month thanks to a net loss on the Super Bowl.
Missouri was the only U.S. state to legalize sports betting in 2025, adding the wagering in December - just in time for the Chiefs to complete a second-half collapse that resulting in them not even reaching the playoffs.
With $543 million wagered in the state in that first month, it would figure that with even with an unusually low 10% tax rate, the state presumably would enjoy a very profitable first month of sports betting.
