A giant ad on the side of Madison Square Garden in Manhattan, toasting the arrival of legal sports betting in New York City. (Image: Ira Berger / Alamy)

Borgata Hotel, Casino and Spa sits nearly alone in Atlantic City, New Jersey. Located at the marina, only Harrah's Resort resides nearby, with the bulk of the gaming and betting scene about 2.5 miles away at the more famous and much busier oceanfront boardwalk. 

Across their 134,824 authorized square feet of gaming you will find a sea of slot machines, plenty of table games, a booming poker room and tucked right in the middle, a rather pedestrian sportsbook. 

BetMGM runs the retail operation here. Their setup is a nice sports bar with several betting kiosks (which you don’t even need if you have the BetMGM app downloaded). 

On Thursday, the American Gaming Association revealed that it’s projecting $35 billion will be wagered on the 2024 NFL season – a 33% increase from the $26 billion bet legally last year.

As legalized sports betting enters its seventh year post-PASPA, we sit on the cusp of a changing of the guard atop the US state leaderboard. 

My home state of New Jersey pushed arguably harder than anyone to get the courts to open the live and online betting windows, and acted quickly to get up and running in June 2018 – well ahead of football season. In less than three years, April 2021, the Garden State surpassed Nevada for having the biggest sports betting handle, and has held the crown ever since.

All told, since 2018, New Jersey has a cumulative online and retail handle of $53.1 billion through July, with revenues of over $4 billion, and a hold rate of 7.5%.

But as Satchel Paige once famously said “Don't look back. Something might be gaining on you.” That something is New York, that behemoth to our North and East that sits poised to take the title at some point in 2025. 

More money is consistently being bet on sports in New York compared to New Jersey, so it’s a matter of when not if my neighbor to the north surpasses us as the sports betting capitol of the world.

New York vs. New Jersey

The Empire State took their time going live online, but once they did, New York became the nation’s monthly leader for sports betting handle virtually overnight. 

Prior to January 2022, New York only allowed sports betting at a smattering of upstate casinos, all of which sit at least a few hours drive from the New York City metro area. Depending on the specifics, residents could get to the casinos in Atlantic City more quickly, not to mention New Jersey racetracks with sportsbooks that are even closer. 

The book at the Meadowlands Racetrack, for example, sits just 7.5 miles from the Lincoln Tunnel. Though to be fair that particular drive sometimes takes longer than it would to fly to Vegas.  

By the end of 2021, New Jersey, with sports betting available at its land based casinos and online, had a cumulative handle of $22.8 billion. This dwarfed the sports betting at New York’s upstate casinos, with only $365 million in handle. But since January 2022, when New York began allowing online bets, New York has a handle of $47.8 billion, while New Jersey checks in at $30.3 billion.

So when will New York pull ahead in terms of cumulative handle? 

Here is how that figure has looked in each state since New Jersey began taking bets in 2018:

On this trajectory, it looks like New York will surpass New Jersey in total amount of money bet on sports probably during or right after March Madness 2025.

New Jersey still has roughly a $5 billion lead, but we have just entered the NFL and NCAA football seasons during which betting of course spikes each year and remains elevated through March Madness. 

In the September ‘23 to March ‘24 period, New York averaged a monthly handle of $1.94 billion compared to $1.38 billion for New Jersey. That gap of over $560 million actually narrows a bit from the over $575 mil gap the previous year despite overall handle growth in both states. 

At the 2023 pace, expect New York to grab the title somewhere around April of 2025 and certainly by next summer.

In May, New York passed New Jersey as the state that has generated the most revenue from sports betting.

New York State of Mind

By a couple other measures, New York already leads the nation. The Empire State has the higher hold rate at 8.86%. Why have New York books done better? Added “vig” or “juice” in New York provides one explanation, but that seems unlikely as the bigger books operate in both states and would have similar pricing across the US. 

Another possibility is that NJ books give away more in promotions. Maybe that is the case now as New York casinos went a bit wild with the freebies back when they opened and did not have a monthly hold of greater than 7.5% until May 2022. So likely New Jersey with more sportsbooks available and a smaller population now has more generous perks.

Regardless, thanks to the greater hold, New York has pulled in $4.3 billion in revenue compared to just $4.0 billion in New Jersey. 

New York has been generating the most monthly revenue from sports betting revenue pretty much since the day legal online apps went live.

Oh, and we should mention there is an enormous disparity in tax rates – 51% in New York vs. 13% in New Jersey – and as such New York has filled their coffers nearly 4x the levels of New Jersey.

But alas sports betting does not rule all in the Garden State, especially so here at Borgata. 

Retail sports betting has run up a small loss so far in 2024 at the Borgata – $7,679. Online sports betting has added $39.6 million to the bottom line. About 90% of that is via BetMGM with the rest from the “house” brand. 

All of this gets dwarfed by casino gaming. 

The casino hotels in New Jersey have run up a win of $427.8 million, roughly 71% of which comes from slots. Internet gaming adds $304.1 million. Throw it all together with Borgata/BetMGM, and sports betting makes up just 5.1% of the bottom line.

Yes, this time a year from now, New York will almost certainly hold the title of Sports Betting Capital of the USA. And they will keep that designation for years to come as Texas and California may never vote to legalize … and even if those longshots ever do come in, actual betting wouldn’t start for months to years later.

Shed no tears for New Jersey though as casino gaming more than makes up for any ostensible shortfall. Of course, many of those customers come from New York.

(Data sources: New York State Gaming Commission, New Jersey Division of Gaming Enforcement)