Gambling becomes America’s favorite pastime as Americans spend more on sports bets than movies, arts, museums, and music combined

In 2025, Americans placed roughly $166 billion in bets on sporting events. That’s more than the entire U.S. movie, music, book, and museum industries generated in revenue combined.

The North American box office totaled $8.87 billion in 2025, which is still 22% below pre-pandemic levels. Recorded music revenue hit a record $11.5 billion. Live music like concerts and festivals brought in $18.51 billion. Meanwhile, book publishers tracked by the Association of American Publishers reported $14.6 billion for the year. And the U.S. museum industry generated an estimated $16.4 billion. Add it up and the total comes to roughly $70 billion, which is less than half what Americans wagered on sports.

“It fills that void, and it will crowd out other forms of entertainment, other forms of hospitality, for sure,” said Martin “Marty” Conway, an adjunct lecturer in Georgetown University’s Sports Industry Management program. Sports gambling, in all respects, has become more ubiquitous, and as a result, is becoming more accepted as yet another form of entertainment. “They’ve taken something that was just who’s going to win, and now you’re actually able to get involved in certain other events of the game. That’s a form of engagement as opposed to what we knew previously.”

As surprising as that $166 billion figure is, the actual may be even greater, especially because several states permit betting through tribal casinos—most notably Florida, along with Washington and Wisconsin—which are not required to publicly disclose their handle. Victor Matheson, an economist at Holy Cross who studies sports gambling, said Florida alone accounts for somewhere between $5 billion and $10 billion. “The $165 or $170 billion number is low,” he told Fortune .

That figure also excludes sports wagering flowing through prediction market platforms like........

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