The US will earn nearly $12 billion in gross gaming revenue if legalized sports betting will be extended beyond Nevada and other states where it is currently lawful
The Las Vegas Sun reported that Gambling Compliance Research Services (GCRS) has released its latest research note on the sports betting industry just a month after the U.S. Court of Appeals struck down a bill legalizing sports betting in New Jersey for the third time since 2013.
In the report, GCRS has predicted that the US will snatch the title of the world’s largest sports-betting market from UK if sports wagering is made legal in the country. The study estimated that the US market is more than four times the amount of the United Kingdom, which is $2.8 billion.
“U.S. policymakers, casino groups and sports leagues have all begun to consider what a regulated sports-betting market would look like without the PASPA (Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act) prohibition,” GamblingCompliance’s managing director, James Kilsby, said in a news release. “States are already moving rapidly to regulate daily fantasy sports, but sports betting represents a far larger and more lucrative opportunity.”
GCRS said that California alone could reap $1.3 billion if legal sports wagering were expanded to tribal casinos, online and non-casino retail outlets while New York will be able to pocket $900 million.
At present, GCRS noted that legalized sports betting generates less than $300 million in gross gaming revenue in the U.S., where only four states are exempt from the federal prohibition — Nevada, Delaware, Montana and Oregon. The vast majority of the revenue comes from Nevada.
The American Gaming Association meanwhile estimated that sports bettors wagered approximately $145 billion illegally in the United States in 2015. Other estimates of the annual illegal U.S. sports betting handle range in size from $80 billion to $380 billion.
