If you're in Manhattan or Muncie, this NBA season might be one of the more more captivating you've witnessed in recent memory. Maybe it even compelled you to sprinkle a little money on the New York Knicks or Indiana Pacers.
However, if you live in, say, Baltimore or Portland, this year might be one worth forgetting. And it may also have been one worth keeping your hands in your pockets, rather than on your phone, tapping away at a sports betting app.
...and I took that personally
Whatever your personal level of NBA interest, overall fan following became a hot topic this past year, driven by concerns about boring, 3-point-laden blowouts, among other things.
NBA Commissioner Adam Silver conceded a chance of a slight decline in TV ratings for the league this past season. However, he then trumpeted last month that early television ratings for the league’s playoffs were “fantastic," the best the league saw in 25 years.
Even so, one consulting group found another area where NBA interest appears to have drifted, among sports bettors.
Key takeaways
- Consultants Eilers & Krejcik's report said NBA betting handle this season fell around 10% compared to the previous year in several states.
- That report follows a TV ratings decline this past NBA season.
- However, not every state saw basketball handle fall.
Eilers & Krejcik Gaming reported Thursday that NBA betting handle declined approximately 10% this past season compared to the previous year, citing data from Colorado, Illinois, Maryland, Nevada, New Jersey, and Oregon.
In New Jersey, for example, state regulators reported nearly $1.9 billion in basketball wagering for the first four months of 2024. For the first four months of 2025, basketball handle fell below $1.6 billion.
The amount bet on the NBA declined approximately 10% year-over-year this season, according to gambling research firm @EilersKrejcik. pic.twitter.com/77VheYToAp
— David Payne Purdum (@DavidPurdum) May 29, 2025
Jeff Sherman, vice president of risk management at the SuperBook in Las Vegas, said its NBA handle this past season was “right in that vicinity” of what EKG reported.
“The continued national growth [of sports betting outside Nevada], along with our operating system restricting us from offering the extensive wagering menu that other books’ operating systems can offer, has contributed to this decline at our book,” Sherman said in an email.
EKG's consultants said multiple sportsbook operators pointed out “soft NBA performance” during recent earnings calls.
“The handle decline was driven by macro and sport-specific trends,” EKG said. “On a structural basis, handle has been low-growth thanks to declining promo levels as well as the ongoing shift to higher margin, lower stake products like [same-game parlays]. For NBA specifically, FanDuel noted ‘less competitive matchups resulted in larger spreads’ and therefore less betting appetite from customers.”
FanDuel-parent Flutter Entertainment PLC called out basketball specifically during its latest round of financial results.
Flutter CEO Peter Jackson said in a letter to shareholders that basketball handle growth "was lower than anticipated, offset by growth in other sports."
“We believe this handle softness is specific to the basketball market, and we have a number of commercial and product initiatives that will specifically enhance basketball engagement next season,” Jackson added.
This is the thanks I get?
So, have bettors fallen out of love with the NBA? That would be somewhat ironic given Silver, more than a decade ago, threw the weight of his league behind legalizing and regulating sports betting in a landmark New York Times op-ed.
But getting a clear answer to how sports bettors feel about the NBA is tricky, because not every state reports wagering figures by sport and not every state saw the same declines the EKG reported. So, if there’s a chill in NBA betting, it may not be universal.
Nevada, for example, still reported $246 million in basketball handle for April 2025, up from $223 million a year earlier. Silver State basketball-related revenue also rose to $20.9 million in April, compared to $13.3 million a year earlier.
Meanwhile, figures presented to the Virginia Lottery Board showed approximately 19.5% of all commonwealth legal sports wagers from January to November 2024 were on pro basketball (not counting basketball bets in parlays). From January to November 2023, it was 20.3%.
The local angle
Whether there's a local team doing well might have some bearing on NBA betting handle.
In Indiana, bettors wagered more than $115 million on basketball this April, down from $121.5 million a year earlier. However, basketball year-to-date handle was up a good bit, to almost $1.2 billion in 2025 compared to about $980 million at the end of April 2024. Some of that increase could be due to the Pacers’ playoff run.
Granted, Indiana is a relatively small state, but the EKG report also doesn’t include data from New York, the U.S.' biggest competitive market for online sports betting. The Empire State does publish mobile sports betting numbers but, like others, doesn't break down wagering by sport.
Still, New York sports betting regulators reported more than $2.1 billion wagered in April using the state's licensed sportsbooks, up from about $2 billion in April 2024. Again, while New York doesn't break out wagering by sport, at least some of that could be because of the Knicks.
Couple observations:
— Sportsbook Consigliere (@SportsbkConsig) May 29, 2025
-mAyBe tHe BeTTiNg dOeSn’T mAkE PeOpLe WaTcH (gasp)
-CO, IL, MD, NV, NJ & OR are not exactly NBA hotbeds (just sayin) https://t.co/B1JW7uBZeH
Tom Gable, race and sportsbook director for the Borgata Hotel Casino and Spa in Atlantic City, said its NBA Playoff handle was "relatively flat" compared to last year, but regular season wagering "saw a pretty nice increase.”
“I can't necessarily account for why, but we always take a pretty strong basketball handle here, in general, between NBA and college,” Gable said in an interview with Covers. “This year we saw a nice increase.”
Despite the growth of online sports betting in New York, Atlantic City still gets a "pretty strong" amount of wagering from New Yorkers, Gable said. And the Knicks hanging around in the playoffs helped keep postseason handle flat year-over-year, rather than declining.
However, just because the Knicks winning means more betting, it doesn’t mean the Knicks winning is necessarily a good thing for the Borgata. The sportsbook has a fair amount of Knicks-related liability hanging in the Eastern Conference Final's balance.
“The swing for us between a Pacers' victory and a Knicks' victory is very significant,” Gable said.
