The rise of legal sports betting has been a hot-button topic in US media over the 2020s so far. Since 2018, more than 30 states have opened regulated sports betting markets – and the business is now worth billions of dollars a year. Many at the time expected legal online casinos to follow suit – but now in 2026 only six states have legal online casino markets, and the majority of revenues are concentrated in three states.
In 2025 and 2026 so far politicians in several more states considered opening regulated markets, but bills mostly failed before getting to any Governors’ desks. So why did this happen? Why do lawmakers view online casinos different from sports betting? And what does this say for gambling fans and operators going forward?
1. Sports Betting is Integrated with Hugely Popular Sports
Sports are incredibly popular in America. To put that in perspective, US teams, organisations and individuals made up 56% or around $97 billion of the global $174 billion sports market’s revenues in 2025. At the same time sports betting made $16 billion in revenues across the year. Meanwhile online casinos, legal only in six states, made $10 billion across the year.
That shows just how big sports is in the US. Nearly 10 times bigger than online casinos. That means sports betting is a much more culturally acceptable form of gambling in more conservative markets. It can be enjoyed, and indeed marketed, as a way of increasing engagement with sports – and that gets a lot of the big leagues on side. All of that is something online casinos just can’t claim in the same way.
Nevertheless the market for them is still hugely significant, and there is a lot of competition. Players often turn to lists of the top rated online casinos available at comparison sites to get important information including bonuses, payment speeds and game collections. This shows just how much detail casino fans want to look into when making a choice – because there’s a lot of variation.
2. The Rise of Sports Betting Has Its Opponents
While sports betting across the US has largely been successful in increasing tax revenues for states, it hasn’t been without its controversy. Just some talking points among campaigners who want less gambling in the US and not more include the prominence of betting adverts, rising rates of problem gambling and the prevalence of sports betting advertising at sports matches and in sports media.
This sentiment shift was capped off recently when Ohio Governor Mike DeWine said that opening up sports betting in the state was among his biggest regrets.
Other concerns have come from the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA). This has included a long-running campaign to highlight abuse received by student athletes on social media – often linked to angry sports bettors. Then there have also been multiple cases of college athletes being suspended from top teams for betting.
All of this has changed public opinion. While more than half of Americans still have a positive or neutral overall perspective on sports betting according to polls, more than 55% of adults think it is too heavily promoted – especially in partnerships with sports teams.
3. The Timing Was Right for Sports Betting – But Maybe Not Casinos
After New Jersey opened the floodgates for legal sports betting in 2018 (and Delaware jumped in to launch before them) a dozen other states opened their markets by 2020. Daily Fantasy Sports had basically reached their peak popularity around this time and sports broadcasters had already exposed these betting adjacent brands to national attention.
The first wave may have come before. But when the COVID pandemic fully hit in 2020, states that had been considering sports betting looked enviously on at booming betting revenues – and tax income – in states that had. So within the next few years, a large majority of US states would launch their own legal sports betting.
Conversely, all the concerns about the spread of sports betting as defined above, make it a very different time for lawmakers to suggest online casinos.
For example Ohio Governor DeWine’s comments recently would not have settled well with Governors potentially looking at online casino bills landing on their desk, or indeed those local representatives below them who are promoting those bills.
Another is that the gambling business has been somewhat of a victim of its own success. Land-based casino operators across the country, specifically influential and deep-pocketed tribal casino operators in big markets like California, have seen the huge rise of online gambling – and they know they can’t really compete with the now-established brands. So they oppose it.
Their main argument is that online casinos take or “cannibalize” customers away from the land-based market. This is bad for employment, because online casinos usually employ far fewer people in the state (if any) and they don’t bring in tourism either.
The evidence for this is inconsistent, especially in states that have both land-based and online gambling, but the tribal operators have mostly stuck to their guns on the issue. Until this is resolved, big new US markets for online casinos are likely to remain locked off in the immediate future.