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Knicks fans bet big on their team. The sports betting giants lost.
By
Jon Campbell
Published Sep 16, 2026
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By
Jon Campbell
Published Sep 16, 2026
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When the New York Knicks won, the gambling giants lost.
More than $1 billion in bets were placed on mobile devices in New York during the two weeks the Knicks played in the NBA Finals in June, according to state gaming revenue reports.
During that same period, the nine mobile sportsbooks operating in New York lost a combined $14 million — coinciding with the Knicks winning a deciding fifth game over the San Antonio Spurs.
That loss may have stemmed from New Yorkers betting big on the Knicks to win their first championship since 1973, which drew significant payouts because the team was a healthy underdog, state Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli concluded in a new report issued Wednesday.
“The 2026 NBA Finals demonstrated how large winning wagers associated with high odds can sharply reduce gross gaming revenues and, in turn, the collections from the tax on those revenues,” DiNapoli’s report concluded.
New York first launched mobile sports wagering in 2022. It allows people who are physically present in the state to open up FanDuel, DraftKings, or one of the other permitted mobile apps and place a bet on most major professional and college sporting events.
The sportsbooks’ losses hit New York’s tax coffers.
The state taxes mobile sportsbooks' gross revenues at 51%. That means the state got nothing the week the books lost money. But the state likely came out ahead when factoring in sales tax collected during the Knicks’ extended playoff run, with New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s office estimating it generated hundreds of millions of dollars in economic activity.
The week the Knicks won still marks the only time the mobile sportsbooks reported a net loss in New York since launching four years ago, according to the state Gaming Commission’s weekly reports, which the Capitol Pressroom noted in June.
DiNapoli’s report assessed the current state of New York’s legalized sports gambling market, which has accounted for $91.2 billion of wagers from the start of 2022 through March 2026. After payouts, the books reported $8.3 billion in gross revenue, according to the report.
The bulk of that money is wagered on five sports: basketball, football, baseball, tennis and soccer. Even before the Knicks’ run, basketball accounted for more than $9 billion in wagers in 2025 — easily outpacing the $5 billion spent on football.
All told, the mobile betting companies reported more than 7.2 million unique accounts in New York as of last year, according to the report.
At the same time, calls to the state’s HOPEline – which provides support for people struggling with gambling, among other things — have increased.
There were 2,545 total calls in 2025, an 8.5% increase since 2020. The report found that sports betting has been the most common reason for calls since 2022.
Correction: This story has been updated to correct the number of games in the NBA finals.
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new york city
new york state
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Jon Campbell
Jon Campbell covers the New York State Capitol for WNYC and Gothamist. Prior to that, he covered the Capitol for more than a decade for the USA TODAY Network. He has twice earned the Walter T. Brown Memorial Award, an honor given annually by the Legislative Correspondents Association alumni for outstanding state government coverage. Jon grew up in the Buffalo area and graduated from the University at Albany. Got a tip? Email Jon at [email protected] or Signal at JonCampbellNY.90.
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