Legal NFL wagering may be heading into a historic stall. It’s not a long history of legal wagering in the U.S., but it’s been several years of an ever-upward trajectory. Until now.
The American Gaming Association projects Americans will put $29.5 billion through regulated sportsbooks on the 2026 season, only 0.3% above last year’s $29.4 billion, or essentially no growth. That would be the first no-growth season since the Supreme Court ended the federal sports-betting ban in 2018. AGA President and CEO Bill Miller blames sports event contracts, which he calls backdoor sports betting, for pulling handle away from licensed books and for cutting tax dollars states and tribes expected to collect. That latter part is reflexively mentioned by all AGA spokespersons to tie their gambling operations to public benefits.
The forecast covers preseason games, futures booked as early as March, the playoffs, and Super Bowl LXI. Miller said legalized sports betting had delivered tremendous growth after PASPA fell. “But this year is different,” he said in the association’s official release. “Since the widespread launch of backdoor sports betting on so-called ‘prediction markets,’ the growth of legal handle has stalled.”
The same release says sports contracts already make up roughly 80% of Kalshi’s volume, including an estimated $5.1 billion from users aged 18 to 20. That age group sits below the legal line in most jurisdictions that authorize sports wagering, so it doesn’t really take handle away from sportsbooks, but the AGA still mentions it in all communications because it knows much of the public sees it negatively. Miller accuses those platforms of selling sports wagers as an investment instead of entertainment, as sportsbooks claim, and of skipping the state and tribal rules licensed operators must follow.
Why the Flat $29.5 Billion Forecast Hits So Hard
Sportsbooks had grown used to climbing NFL totals every fall. Last year the AGA floated a $30 billion estimate and finished at $29.4 billion. This year’s figure applies 2026 year-to-date national handle growth to that baseline, plus football-specific reporting from selected states. After years of expansion, a 0.3% move suggests a ceiling is forming. For the pessimist, that may suggest the ceiling is actually a peak, from which numbers could actually decline.
The AGA reports that regulated gaming still supports an estimated 1.8 million jobs and generates about $18 billion a year in sports-betting tax revenue. Against that backdrop, the AGA claims Kalshi and Polymarket have diverted more than $1.3 billion in potential state gaming tax revenue since 2025. Those dollars never reach the same government ledgers that licensed books feed.
Age Limits, Tax Math, and Miller’s Public Case
AGA’s Miller’s sharpest claim is that consumers, including teenagers and college freshmen, are placing trades without the protections and accountability the legal market requires. Licensed sportsbooks cannot take most 18- to 20-year-old customers. Event-contract venues, in the AGA’s telling, are filling that gap and calling the activity something other than a wager, which could make the lure even stronger for young adults.
The group is also recycling an earlier tax-loss argument that first crossed $1 billion in the spring. Miller repeated that figure on CNBC’s Squawk Box, where he cited 41 attorneys general who told the CFTC it is not the regulator of national sportsbooks:
Kalshi’s Elisabeth Diana previously called the billion-dollar tally “fake math from casinos who are worried about losing their monopoly power.” The AGA’s reply is to apply state and tribal tax rates to sports-event-contract handle and treat the result as missing revenue. Whether every dollar would have landed in a licensed book remains the weakest part of the assumed math. Even so, Miller is using the number to press statehouses and tribal governments that budget around gaming taxes. Tax revenue and jobs are the two social goods that sportsbooks repeatedly mention when defending their turf.
Miller has carried the same message to Congress. His Senate Commerce subcommittee remarks argued that state- and tribal-regulated gaming funds integrity monitoring, while sports event contracts, in his view, weaken those safeguards.
Opening Week Becomes the Live Test
The NFL has stayed commercially distant from event-contract venues even after renewing multi-year deals with traditional sportsbooks (all of whom actually have launched their own federally regulated event markets). League officials have also pressed designated contract markets to drop contracts they consider easily manipulated or objectionable. That pressure now sits beside the AGA’s flat handle forecast and turns Week 1 into a real-time test of who keeps the football money this season.
States that legalized sports betting built budgets around receipts that rise when handle rises. A flat NFL season, if the AGA’s math holds, means those receipts stop climbing just as event-contract volume keeps expanding. Miller is betting lawmakers will hear threatened tax revenue and fight like hell to end, at least federally regulated, sports event contracts.
Traders chasing football prices will settle the next chapter on the field. Licensed books are loading Week 1 boards with spreads, totals, and props. Event-contract venues are listing many of the same sportsbook options under a different label. If the AGA is right through February, the first flat NFL season since PASPA will not look like a pause. It will look like the season-diverted handle became a new standard. And it could get worse.
References
- American Gaming Association official NFL wagering forecast
- PR Newswire AGA $29.5 billion release
- Bitcoin.com News: Casino lobby blames prediction markets
- Gaming America: AGA prediction markets stall NFL handle growth
- CDC Gaming: AGA warns of flat NFL betting handle
- Yogonet: AGA estimates flat $29.5 billion NFL handle
- Casino.org: NFL betting handle stalls
- NBC Sports: AGA blames $1 billion in tax losses
- Covers: AGA expects first flat NFL season since legalization
- iGaming.News: AGA warns prediction markets threaten growth
- Deadspin: AGA projects nearly flat NFL betting handle
- Gaming America on the AGA $1 billion tax figure
