Trends, Taxes & Who’s Betting in 2025

Sports betting across America has achieved remarkable growth over the last few years, with online betting in Philly especially catching the eye for its numbers.

But what does online betting in Philly look like? Who’s betting, what are they betting on, and are they winning? What’s more, how much money is the state collecting in sports betting taxes, and what trends in online gambling Philly players should be aware of?

The State of Online Gambling in PA

Starting with the most important question of all: Is online gambling legal in PA?

The answer is 100% yes. All forms of online gambling in PA, such as sports betting (both in person and online), and online casino games like slots, video poker, and roulette, are completely legal in Pennsylvania, provided you’re aged 21 or over.

Basically, anything that normally falls under the “online gambling” umbrella is allowed (and anything that doesn’t – such as cockfighting – isn’t).

As for sports betting itself, it’s been legal in Pennsylvania (and therefore Philadelphia) since October 2017, when Governor Tom Wolf signed a bill that allowed online sportsbooks to legally offer their services.

You can bet on all kinds of professional sports, with college props being the only betting market that’s banned. But if you want to bet on your local team, you can go ahead and do that.

This means you can rock up to an online betting site, create an account, and start placing bets without worrying that you might be doing something wrong. You still need to look out for a license, though, that permits said betting site to operate legally in PA. Currently, there are 11 licensed online sportsbooks in Philadelphia, with Bet365 the latest to be granted a license.

The only other catch is that you must be within state lines when you’re placing a bet. This means if you sign up for a Philly sportsbook and leave state lines, it would be illegal to place a bet if you’re currently in a US state where online betting is outlawed.

Who Bets in Philly?

Now that we know online betting is fully up and running in PA, let’s take a look at who’s taking advantage of it.

According to the latest data, 49% of Americans placed some sort of wager last year. This means that pretty much half the country is betting on sports, with the NFL by far the most popular sport to bet on.

Zoning in on Pennsylvania, the data for 2023 shows that 65% of people living in the state gambled at some point that year, which is way more than half, and higher than the country’s average. More specifically, 9.1% of Pennsylvania residents placed a sports bet online in 2023.

14% of those who gambled placed bets online and offline, with these types of bettors (known as “dual mode bettors”) accounting for a larger chunk of the total sports betting revenue.

But What do Pennsylvania Online Bettors Look Like?

Perhaps unsurprisingly, the average sports bettor in Pennsylvania is a white male under 40. In fact, 33 is the average age of a PA sports bettor. They tend to be employed and educated, and therefore have a decent amount of disposable income to spend on sports betting online.

32% of young adults in Pennsylvania aged between 25 and 34 bet on sports each year, while the current data shows that more millennials (40%) bet on sports than Gen Z (36.5%).

There isn’t a huge difference between the numbers, but there’s enough of one to suggest that millennials bet more because they have higher earning power, and possibly because they’ve been doing it for longer.

Understanding Philadelphia betting demographics and trends is important because it influences state policy and identifies potential issues.

For example, if the Pennsylvania Department of Drug and Alcohol problems can see which demographics are experiencing a notable upswing in gambling, it can help them identify cohorts that are most at risk of running into financial problems and/or getting addicted.

They could then table legislation that prompts the Gaming Board to put in place measures that protect residents, either by banning gambling ads or strengthening safer gambling procedures.

How Philly Bettors Are Placing Their Bets: Mobile vs Desktop

Philadelphia sports bettors have the option of placing bets in-person at a casino or sportsbook, or online at a sports betting site, either via their desktop computer, tablet, or mobile device.

Some betting sites have an app you can download and install onto your mobile device, but you can always access the markets and place bets using your mobile browser.

As long as you stick to licensed and reputable Pennsylvania gambling sites, you can be sure that your details will be kept safe and secure, regardless of whether you bet on your desktop computer or Android, or iOS.

Mobile betting is more popular than ever, with 75% of US bettors reporting that they placed wagers on their mobile device.

This means 3 out of 4 bets are placed on an Android, iOS, or tablet, with bettors preferring the convenience and accessibility.

With the drive for mobile betting so strong, it figures that the leading online betting sites would be working hard to develop their own apps that load quickly, and which are stacked with unique betting tools and features that set them apart, including same game parlays and odds boosts.

However, because plenty of sports bettors still prefer placing bets on their desktop computers, it’s essential that betting sites continue to dedicate themselves to creating intuitive websites that are functional and aesthetically pleasing, and which, among other things, have 24/7 customer support and easy payout processes.

What Are Philly Bettors Betting On?

NFL betting leads the way in Philadelphia, following a common trend across the rest of the country. More than half of PA sports bettors wagered on the NFL at some point in 2024, with the Super Bowl easily the most popular sporting event to bet on.

NBA betting is the second most popular sport to bet on, with 38% of people saying they placed an NBA bet in 2024, while 25% of bettors put money on the MLB and soccer.

Boxing is the most popular individual sport, with 18% of sports bettors placing a wager on it in 2024, while 11% of bettors had a dabble on tennis and the NHL.

How about college sports?

While there is no data for Philadelphia specifically right now, what we do know is that around $3.1 billion was wagered on March Madness in 2025 across the entire country, suggesting that the appetite for betting on college football and college basketball is strong in PA.

This is despite the fact that, in Pennsylvania and many other US states, placing college prop bets is prohibited.

Is Problem Gambling a Risk for Pennsylvanians?

We touched on problem gambling a little earlier, but let’s get a bit deeper into it.

As we’ve seen, a lot of people see gambling in Pennsylvania as a way to make money, even though the online casino statistics (Pennsylvania) regularly tell us that most people don’t break even, let alone make a profit annually.

Theoretically, this could create problems, especially among problem gamblers who constantly chase something that they’ll never reach. 2.5 million US adults say they’re addicted to sports betting, with 37% of Gen Z bettors saying that they’ve got a gambling problem.

Recent PA casino news centered around the fact that the Pennsylvania Gaming Board was all set to make it easier for anyone who had previously banned themselves from a casino (known as self-exclusion) to return to gambling.

The proposal would have meant that problem gamblers could easily start betting at casinos again, despite the huge amount of personal risk involved, because their ban would be automatically lifted for them.

As gambling expert, Jody Bechtold, pointed out: “When (a ban) automatically expires, people are triggered. They’re tempted by the very act of finding out that they can gamble again.”

Now that the proposal hasn’t gone ahead, Philly bettors must manually remove themselves from the banned list at each casino once their self-exclusion period has been lifted.

While this won’t stop problem gambling in the state completely, the hope is that it will afford problem gamblers more protection because they have to manually remove themselves.

Other than that, all licensed online sportsbooks in Philadelphia are legally obligated to offer sports bettors the opportunity to self-exclude from their services. They’re also obligated to raise awareness of responsible gambling, either by offering tools like deposit and loss limits or by providing links to helplines.

How Much is Sports Betting Worth? Pennsylvania Gaming Revenue

Problem gambling is an issue. But if any industry is doing super well for the economy, it’s highly unlikely that it will be shut down completely once it’s been legalized, even if there are some risks involved for individuals, such as addiction and debt.

And right now, gambling in Pennsylvania is worth a lot of money to state coffers, with the economic benefits outweighing any negatives incurred by personal risk.

A sign that an industry is doing well is when it grows year-on-year. In Pennsylvania, this is exactly what sports betting is doing (and has been doing since its launch in 2017). Naturally, its worst year for revenue was in 2018 when it was still in its infancy. Even then, Philly bettors contributed to a $2.5 million gross revenue.

A year later, that number had blown up to $119 million. In 2020, revenue from all forms of gambling in PA stood at $269.9 million, either despite or because of COVID-19.

As of the time of writing, annual gambling and online sports betting revenue in the state is in the billions, meaning more money to the IRS and record profits for online sportsbooks.

If we break the revenue down for 2024 a little more, total gambling handle in Pennsylvania stood at over $8 billion, with sports betting tax revenue hitting $138.08 million.

And how about 2025?

While not a great deal of data is available just yet, reports show that handle stood at $873.1 million in January, which was slightly down on the previous month (as expected, since it was the post-Christmas season).

However, Pennsylvania sports betting sites still earned more in January 2025 than they did in December 2024, with revenue standing at $84.3 million for the first month of the new year. Handle also rose during March Madness 2025, before dipping afterwards.

All in all, recent PA online casino news shows that Pennsylvania internet gambling is injecting cash into the state’s economy via revenue and taxes, as well as employment, and it’s showing no signs of slowing down.

Online Betting in Philly: Final Thoughts

Pennsylvania gaming revenue is going up each year, and online gambling in PA is in a very healthy place when looked at purely from an economic point of view.

For bettors, things are looking good, too. Philly bettors have more choices than ever when it comes to what they can bet on.

On the flip side, the huge revenues generated from gambling in PA spell net losses for the bettors, a situation that won’t change. The more people wager on sports, the more money online sportsbooks make.

To mitigate the risk to individual bettors, sportsbooks like FanDuel have formed the Responsible Online Gaming Association to ensure responsible gambling measures are not only put in place but that they actually work.

In all respects, then, it’s important that Pennsylvania continues to balance economic benefits with social care, ensuring that, for most Philly bettors, online sports betting remains a harmless form of entertainment.