CNN
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\n Welcome to Trendlines<\/a>, your weekly installment of what\u2019s trending up and what\u2019s trending down in the world of sports.\n <\/p>\n \n This week, we\u2019re talking about the biggest change to sports fandom in the last decade and arguably this century: Gambling<\/a>.\n <\/p>\n \n It\u2019s a topic that is at the top of the news now because of a provision in President Donald Trump\u2019s recently passed \u201cbig, beautiful bill,\u201d which could be detrimental to professional gamblers in the way that it taxes losses.\n <\/p>\n \n Indeed, there is a lot on the line whenever we talk about sports gambling. Betting on sports has gone from the back rooms to appearing seemingly everywhere on your television and computer screen.\n <\/p>\n \n Americans can\u2019t get enough, and legal gambling one of the most profitable industries.\n <\/p>\n \n Just how profitable is it?\n <\/p>\n \n Let\u2019s start with the money of it all.\n <\/p>\n \n It used to be that Nevada was the only place you could legally gamble on sports. That was the case all the way through 2017. Nevada properties raked in about $260 million in revenue that year. Bettors placed about $5 billion in bets.\n <\/p>\n \n Then came 2018. Thanks to a Supreme Court decision, Nevada wasn\u2019t the only game in town. The floodgates were open, and now sports betting has become legal in the vast majority of the country.\n <\/p>\n \n The result is that legal sports gambling revenue shot up 50-fold to nearly $14 billion last year, with about $150 billion gambled overall.\n <\/p>\n \n The betting has been a boon to local governments, as well. We\u2019re talking billions in taxes.\n <\/p>\n \n A place like New York, which wasn\u2019t known for sports gambling outside of betting on the ponies, has been the biggest winner. There was over $2 billion in gross revenue and over a billion in taxes brought in during 2024 alone.\n <\/p>\n