New York sportsbooks accepted about $595 million in wagers during the first week of the NFL season, producing the state’s strongest NFL opening-week handle since regulated online betting began in January 2022.
The New York State Gaming Commission recorded the total as the sixth-largest weekly handle in the market’s history. It was nearly 13% above the $527 million wagered in the opening week of the 2025 season.
Sportsbooks’ net win nonetheless fell sharply, to roughly $17 million, down 44% from the comparable week last year. ABC7 New York reported that bettors benefited from a Week 1 short on upsets and rich in high-scoring games; Caesars Sportsbook football trader Joey Feazel described the combination of favorites, overs and touchdown scorers as a “bettor-friendly trifecta.”
The Mirror reported that 12 of 16 Week 1 favorites won outright and nine covered the point spread.
The result follows a softer August, when New York’s online sportsbook handle fell 15.3% from a year earlier, as this publication reported on Sept. 13.
The opening-week surge comes within a mobile betting market that has become New York’s second-largest source of gaming revenue, behind only the lottery. State Comptroller Thomas P. DiNapoli said mobile sports betting generated $1.3 billion in state revenue from taxes on gross gaming revenue in fiscal 2026, while more than $91.2 billion had been wagered through mobile platforms from the market’s January 2022 launch through the end of that fiscal year.
The comptroller has also linked the sector’s expansion to problem-gambling concerns. There were 2,545 calls to New York’s HOPEline in 2025, up 8.5% from 2020, and DiNapoli said the state’s doubling of problem-gambling-services funding to $12 million remained small relative to the billions wagered.
