When North Carolina sports betting launched in March 2024, the state became the latest to join a growing acceptance toward wagering on sports.
How fast has sports betting caught on nationwide? In 2023, the legal, regulated sportsbooks in America combined for more than $121 billion in handle, or amount wagered. In 2024 that total skyrocketed to nearly $150 billion.
Let’s take a quick glance at the numbers, with projections from the one state yet to have final data for 2024:
Nationwide sports betting, 2024 vs. 2023
| Total handle | Revenue |
2024* | $149.614B | $11.840B |
2023 | $121.129B | $9.505B |
Change | Up 23.5% | Up 24.6% |
*Including projected final numbers for Arizona
This analysis comes from BetCarolina.com, home to the best NC sportsbook promo codes around.
How Sports Betting Handle Has Grown
The nationwide handle for 2024 was $141.654 billion, not including Arizona, the only state that has not reported figured for December of last year. Through November, Arizona’s total was $7.110 billion, including a state record $897.636 million in handle for November.
Assuming about $850 million for AZ’s December handle – and past trends indicate this is a safe estimate, give or take a few tens of millions – then that state’s total would be about $8 billion for the year and the national total would top $149.5 billion.
This is even more remarkable when you consider that only two states launched sports betting in 2024. Vermont began taking sports wagers on Jan. 11, 2024, and the Tar Heel State, which previously only had a handful of retail outlets at tribal casinos, launched mobile North Carolina sportsbook apps on March 11.
As you can see below, the sports betting handle has grown in leaps and bounds in the past few years, so 2024 just continued that trend.
Revenue Also Growing At Steady Pace
The revenue derived from sports betting nationwide also grew steadily in 2024, increasing about 24.6% in a year-over-year comparison with 2023.
The nationwide revenue in 2023 was $9.505 billion, with slightly incomplete numbers (more on that later). Last year, that projected figure jumped to about $11.84 billion.
In addition to Arizona being incomplete for 2024, we also don’t know how much revenue Tennessee generated for the past year and a half because those figures are no longer reported. The Tennessee Sports Wagering Council ceased reporting statewide sports betting revenue after June 2023, which was when the state switched from having sportsbooks taxed based on revenue to having taxes taken out from the handle. So far, it is the only state to do so.
Revenue is harder to predict on a month-by-month basis than handle, but the revenue from Arizona should exceed $420 million for 2004, added to the revenue that we know for the other states, which is nearly $11.42 billion.
For more details on the Tar Heel State, see our report about North Carolina sports betting handle and revenue at BetCarolina.com.
Which States Grew Fastest in 2024?
Leaving out North Carolina and other states that are fairly new to the game, there were still plenty of states with impressive year-over-year handle growth.
For instance, Illinois increased 20.6% from 2023, with handle at just over $14 billion last year, making it the second-biggest market after New York. Speaking of the Empire State, its sports betting handle increased 18.3% from 2023, hitting $22.7 billion in 2024.
Even as North Carolina launched to the tune of $5.412 billion in handle in its first partial year, neighboring states to the north and west continued to thrive. Handle in Virginia increased 23.9%, hitting $6.925 billion in 2024, and Tennessee’s handle rose 22.8% to $5.624 billion.
With March Madness approaching, check out our guide to college basketball betting in North Carolina for guidance on how to get in on the action as the state approaches its first anniversary of legal online sports betting.
