Ohio Sportsbooks Revenue Reached Major Milestone in 2025
The annual double-digit growth for Ohio sportsbook operators continued in 2025, with $1.05 billion in gross gaming revenue making the state the latest to join the "billion-dollar club."
The milestone seemed unlikely to be achieved through September, as no month had produced even $90 million for the state's sportsbook industry. While October was better at $103.2 million, reaching $1 billion in revenue still seemed like a longshot.
Then came November, with a calendar-year best $1.14 billion in wagers that, coupled with a robust 12% "hold," led to $136.6 million in revenue for the month.
In football, a "Hail Mary" is an unlikely successful play leading to victory in the final moments - and that is a fine description of what happened for Ohio’s sportsbooks.
The Buckeye Bonanza
On Dec. 31, Ohio State University played in a college football playoff contest against underdog University of Miami. The state's bettors came out in full force for the Buckeyes, who wound up not covering the point spread - and not even winning the game at all, in fact.
The result undoubtedly was the leading factor in a miraculous 14.7% hold rate for the month (compared to a 5.8% rate in December 2024). That meant that even with a downturn for the month with $932.2 million in total wagers, the sportsbooks still collected a 2025-high in revenue for the month of $137.1 million.
That was just enough to clear the $1 billion mark for the year, while amassing the second-highest monthly revenue figure since the state launched legal gambling in January 2023. Only New York, New Jersey, and Illinois also topped the billion-dollar milestone in 2025.
Market leaders – the names most likely to be known to casual bettors looking to place a bet on Ohio State (e.g. FanDuel) – each kept more than 15% of the amount bet on their sites in December, while combining for $99 million in revenue.
"Buyer's remorse" on sports betting for Ohio Governor
In late January, Ohio Republican Gov. Mike DeWine sat down with the Editorial Board of the Cleveland Plain-Dealer - the state's largest newspaper - to reflect on his seven years in office as his final year on the job has gotten underway.
“People have asked me, ‘What mistakes did you make?’" DeWine said. "And I’ll lead with signing a bill for sports gaming.
“It’s a huge problem among young males up to [age] 45,” he added. “And we have many of them addicted, many of them spending money that they do not have.
“Frankly, when I signed the bill - I should’ve have, my fault, I take the blame - I didn’t count on the massive amount of advertising that these companies would do, first to get people to sign up for their app and to continue on," DeWine added.
“They now have it here [on their cell phones],” DeWine said. “They don’t have to go to a casino. They don’t have to go anyplace - they got it right here."
Ohio and gambling controversies
Ohio has been at the center of several of the industry's biggest scandals during the three years of Ohio legal sports betting. That includes former Cleveland Cavaliers NBA player and coach Damon Jones being arrested on gambling-related charges and two Cleveland Guardians baseball players being indicted on an alleged scheme to deliberately throw pitches outside the strike zone to help their gambling partners win bets.
MLB officials and major sportsbooks subsequently have agreed that no "micro" wager such as on a single pitch can be larger than $200.
“That’s not a bad compromise, because I think where you see most of the problem, the bets are more than $200," DeWine said. “The other leagues, I think, need to get with it. This is a ticking time bomb.
“There’s a reason that the most watched things on TV every year are sporting events," he added. "The reason they are is that we don’t know the outcome, and we think it’s legitimate.
"If you start attacking that integrity and people thinking, ‘Maybe that pitch in the third inning was thrown because there was somebody who had a bet on it,’ the whole integrity of the sport goes away.”
Ohio casinos also reached $1 billion mark in 2025
The Ohio brick-and-mortar casino industry's 2025 revenue figure of $1.03 billion (up 2.5% over 2024) is nearly identical to what the state's sportsbooks collected.
But while sportsbook monthly numbers were a virtual rollercoaster, the casino figures were more like an airport moving sidewalk.
The casino's low mark for 2025 was $77.8 billion in September, while the highest figure was $94.5 million in March.
The state's four casinos also finished with similar numbers - the high being Hollywood Casino Columbus at $287.8 million for the year and the low being Hollywood Casino Toledo at $231.9 million.
As is typical, slot machines proved to be the "cash cow" at $757.4 million while table games trailed behind at $276.5 million. Slot machines pay players in Ohio back at a rate of just over 92%, but the sheer volume of activity makes them quite lucrative for the casinos anyway.
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