Brand & Consumer

2 min

Charting the Growth in Sports Betting

Written by Nick Laughlin

VP

Copy link

Copied

Our Best Intel is Morning Consult's weekly briefing on key trends emerging in our Always-On survey tracking. Sign up to get these insights first.  https://morningconsult.com/newsletters

31% of U.S. adults say they bet on sports, up from 22% in January 2022.

The climb has been steady: roughly 20% through 2022, 23% by the end of 2023, 26% by the end of 2024, and holding near 30% for the past year.

Stacked area chart of the share of U.S. adults who bet on sports, rising from about 22% in January 2022 to about 31% in 2026, with daily bettors at 7%

The growth has come primarily from habitual bettors. The share of adults betting daily has nearly doubled since early 2022, from 4% to 7%, and weekly betting rose from about 8% to 12%. The casual tier (betting about once a month or less) has barely moved.

Gen Z is catching up to Millennials. Millennials remain the most active betting generation at 43%, up from 31% in January 2022. But Gen Z posted the steepest climb, from 19% to 35%; it pulled even with Gen X in mid-2023 and now leads by 5+ points.

Our read: The all-adults line has mostly plateaued around 30% since early 2025, which raises the possibility the market may be approaching its natural ceiling. However, the doubling of daily and weekly betting means the category's growth is increasingly concentrated in a heavier-usage core. In past years, usage spikes have tended to happen around the start of the NFL season and Super Bowl, meaning the coming months should provide a test of whether the plateau will hold or if the industry is still gaining new users.

Our new agentic report lets you generate a “State of Sports Bettors” deck in minutes

A custom 60-page slide deck with three clicks.

Morning Consult’s suite of agentic reports allows clients to effortlessly generate decks on the brands and audiences they care about. The latest agent produces “State of the Consumer” reports. Clients choose from hundreds of preset audiences or build their own. The agent generates a comprehensive, editable PowerPoint that explains who that audience is, how it’s changing, and what those shifts mean for targeting, messaging, and growth strategy.

See the State of Sports Bettors report as an example here.

Book a demo

Summary

31% of U.S. adults now bet on sports, up from 22% in January 2022, per Morning Consult tracking. Growth is concentrated among habitual bettors and Gen Z.

Posted in

Brand & Consumer

Copy link

Copied

Sign up to get these insights first.

Our Best Intel is Morning Consult's weekly briefing on key trends emerging in our Always-On survey tracking.

Intelligence Platform

Access billions of survey data points updated daily

Anticipate market changes before they happen with our proprietary forecasting models.

Intelligence Platform

Access billions of survey data points updated daily

Anticipate market changes before they happen with our proprietary forecasting models.

Intelligence Platform

Access billions of survey data points updated daily

Anticipate market changes before they happen with our proprietary forecasting models.