YTD September 2025
Through the first nine months of 2025, total domestic gaming revenue increased by $4.4bn year-over-year, or 7.8%. We highlight the significant growth across the iGaming and sports betting segments and to a lesser extent, the growth in VGT distributed gaming and commercial casino segments. However, despite the significant growth in iGaming and sports betting revenue, the YoY commercial casino increase of $1.2bn represented approximately 27% of the $4.4bn.
The overall domestic gaming market and its segments continue to trend up as a whole, despite a few markets that experienced declines through September 2025.
Commercial casino performance in September grew slightly less than has been typical this year, with 11 of 39 markets coming in below their September 2024 revenue. The markets that experienced declines did so at an average decline of -5.3%, with the highest decline happening in Delaware (-21%). If you exclude Delaware as a significant outlier, the average decline is -3.7%. Twenty eight markets, or ~72%, of the commercial segment grew YoY in September at an average rate of 8.9%, and only 3 markets have declined YoY over the last three month period, providing reason to believe the segment remains healthy.
Sports betting appears to have suffered significant losses YoY in September but this is partly because September 2025 had one less Sunday than September 2024. The NFL has an enormous effect on sports betting revenues during its season, and the changes in volume due to calendar drift can make single month comparisons difficult. In contrast, the last three month comparison (July, August, September) for sports betting shows YoY segment growth of 5.5% and early reports coming out for October show growth as well.
However, because 12 of 34 markets are down over this last 3-month period after September data was included, it’s worth looking at a specific market to understand what is happening. Delaware has experienced an average win of 12-13% as percentage of handle over the last 24 months and handle was up 18.7% YoY in September. Despite this, revenue fell -31% and “hold” fell from 19% to 11% YoY. This increased handle may at first seem to counter the idea that the calendar was responsible, though handle would likely have grown more significantly with an extra Sunday. Regardless, the sports betting segment has the least control of hold when compared to commercial slots, tables, iGaming, or VGTs, all of which have regulatory standards and the technical ability to program the expected hold percentage, whereas sports betting can swing meaningfully based on advantageous or disadvantageous outcomes out of the control of the operators and gamers.
Meanwhile, iGaming continues its segment-wide growth unabated and VGT distributed gaming is growing modestly with a few weaker performances mixed in. Pennsylvania’s VGT market is down YoY across all periods but the effect on the segment as a whole is quite small due to the very limited number of VGTs spread across truck stops, fewer than 400 units, which is as designed by the legislation. Wyoming skill games are down -0.6% YTD and -4.3% in the last 3 months and this may very well be a result of the powerful growth in the Wyoming HHR market, up 18% YTD and 15.7% in the last 3 months, which gamers may view as a superior product offering. If Wyoming skill game and HHR revenue were measured together, they would be up 15.2% YTD YoY, recontextualizing what is really happening in this part of the distributed gaming segment.