Looking Back On 2025 & Forward To 2026
The top gambling industry trends Straight to the Point is and will continue to watch, from prediction markets to iCasino legalization to Las Vegas visitation.
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In this column I’ll check in on some of the gambling industry trends I’ve been following since 2024 (that have yet to be fully resolved) and add five emergent trends to the list that I’ll be following into 2026:
NEW: Prediction Markets Put the Pedal to the Metal
NEW: Who Is Minding the Prediction Market Store (come to Jesus moment)
NEW: Problem Gambling Advocates are Winning the Narrative (Prediction Markets Are a Gift to Gambling Opponents)
NEW: The Next, Next Big Thing (Death of sweeps, Cryptocurrency Makes Landfall, and AI)
NEW: Las Vegas, Land-Based Casinos, and Tourism.
But before the new, let’s take a look at the trends I’ve been following since 2024.
STTP on Affiliates
2024: Gambling affiliates had a challenging year in 2024, with rounds of layoffs at former juggernauts Catena Media and Better Collective, XL Media selling off its assets, and Google taking aim at the entire sector with site reputation updates in May and December.
2025: My biggest fear for the affiliate sector is that fallout from the rash of layoffs will force affiliates to lean further into what I believe caused many of its problems: cheap(er) boilerplate content (which looks more and more like AI) that tries to meet Google’s SEO whims.
2026: First the good: Old faces in new places have helped revive quality content (SBC Americas, Sweepsy, and Third Planet’s InGame, Casino Reports, and other sites, as well as Covers.com, Sports Betting Dime, and more). Still, operators are clearly leaning into non-affiliate marketing channels (influencers and organic marketing), CPAs are going down, and new entries like prediction markets pay a fraction of what a traditional sportsbook does. Smart affiliates are likely to continue to pivot toward quality over quantity and multi-channel strategies amid ongoing SEO turbulence from Google’s algorithm shifts and the rise of AI as a search engine. Prediction markets could offer growth at a time when legalization efforts have ground to a halt, but with low CPAs that initial 50-state burst won’t last very long. At the end of the day, the affiliates that use AI correctly will thrive, while those that use it cut costs and pump out content will continue down a road to nowhere — As I previously asked in a different context, “are you using it as a tool or a crutch?”
STTP on Legalization Efforts
2024: Online casino legalization was already trying to counter cannibalization claims from some casino owners and the usual concerns from the responsible and problem gambling crowd. Still, in 2024, a new(ish) opposing force emerged: Labor unions.
2025: Given its current messaging and strategy, I don’t see how the industry overcomes this trifecta of opposition. That makes legalization unlikely, although I have some hope that the messaging will change.
2026: The outlook remains lousy, particularly with the new divisions within the gambling industry (DraftKings, FanDuel, and Fanatics leaving the AGA) diluting pro-legalization coalitions. Unless there is a force majeure that necessitates legalization, progress will remain sluggish, with only incremental wins possible. And an incremental win assumes operators can refine their messaging to address labor, cannibalization and problem gambling concerns. If 2026 is another dud, we might see the online-focused companies lean further into prediction markets and other workarounds. As I previously said, the space is populated with a lot of people/companies that don’t like to wait in line.
STTP on Federal Action
2024: The federal government was poking around the gambling industry all year:
The GRIT Act and the industry’s desire to end the federal excise tax
The Department of Interior’s new tribal compact rules
Classifying problem gambling as a coverable mental health disorder
Still, things came to a head in mid-December [2024] when the Senate Judiciary Committee held an ominously titled hearing on sports betting (you can find STTP’s recap here): America’s High-Stakes Bet on Legalized Sports Gambling.
2025: The hearing went as well as expected, setting the stage for a potentially fiery year for the gambling industry at the federal level in 2025. Will anything come of it? Who knows. But, looking at it through a three-year window, it’s hard to imagine the federal government doesn’t get involved if things continue on their current path — and there’s no indication the industry is going to change on its own.
2026: The good news is (with a little push from professional sports leagues) the industry is pulling back on the reins, at least a little bit. Still, thanks to the rise of prediction markets, federal involvement has arrived, but not in the way anyone anticipated — not only with CFTC oversight(?) of prediction markets, but a 90% gambling loss deduction cap. However, as STTP has warned, if prediction markets are okayed and the CFTC continues to allow Kalshi et al. to push the boundaries of prediction markets, it won’t be long until the government starts extracting its pound of flesh, whether that’s the passage of the SAFE Bet Act, legislation to counteract betting scandals, or just calls for more responsible gaming regulations and financial burdens, which will likely sweep up everyone from Kalshi to traditional sportsbooks.
STTP On Tax Hikes
2024: Ohio doubled its sports betting tax rate in 2023, and Illinois one-upped its neighbor by bumping its rate from a flat 15% to a tiered system ranging from 25%-40% in 2024. Even more riveting (and somehow almost wholly forgotten) was the response by DraftKings, which tried to sell a surcharge as the solution to the taxation problem. This idea went over like an all-you-can-eat pasta dinner at a celiac convention.
2025: I expect to see more states explore raising gambling tax rates. There are growing calls to rein in the prevalence and in-your-face nature of online gambling (and what better way to kneecap an industry than saddle it with heavy financial burdens). Further, online casino and sports betting expansion efforts have run into a brick wall, so when states look for new gambling revenue, their only option is to squeeze existing operators.
2026: Well, 2025 was not a good year for sportsbooks on the tax front with increases in Maryland, New Jersey, and Louisiana, plus a new per-wager fee in Illinois and a 10.25% city of Chicago tax in Illinois, and Colorado sunsetting promotional deductions. Expect more of the same in 2026. Kansas is renegotiating terms with its licensed sportsbooks, and failed efforts in Indiana, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, North Carolina, Ohio, and Wyoming are likely to get a second look.
STTP on VIPs and Limiting
2024: Regulators in Massachusetts (and later Wyoming) started asking sportsbooks about their VIP and limiting bettor practices, and to no one’s surprise, the industry tried to sidestep the issue. Where the industry went a bit too far was its decision to almost universally no-show a roundtable discussion on the topic in May. The Massachusetts Gaming Commission offered them a mulligan in September, and the operators came to their collective senses and showed up.
2025: The MGC has already requested data on limiting and VIP customers. As I previously wrote:
“Last week, the MGC unanimously approved a plan to collect data on the practices of limiting bettors and designating customers as VIPs from the state’s licensed sports betting operators.”
I expect more states to do the same, and I expect VIPs to be a much bigger topic of discussion than limited bettors going forward. My big question is: Will the sportsbooks fully comply with the request, or will they hold back some of the data?
2026: Massachusetts is the canary in the coal mine on limiting, but I don’t think Massachusetts will be alone for very long. As I recently wrote, following the drafting of rules around limiting in Massachusetts, which are now in the public comment phase:
“The MGC was given two options, and all Commissioners seemed to favor the expanded proposal over the limited version seen below:
(11) Procedures to provide timely notice to a patron that their wagering activity has been limited.
(11) Procedures to provide timely notice to a patron that their wagering activity has been limited, including a specific explanation for the attachment of the limit(s), and identification as to which market(s) are so limited.”
STTP on Player Prop Restrictions
2024: Legal US sports betting markets are being whittled away. The NCAA was able to successfully lobby a few states to remove college player prop bets from their lists of approved betting markets. During the congressional hearing in December, NCAA President Charlie Baker made the case for a national ban on college player prop bets, telling the Senate Judiciary Committee that Congress could save him a lot of time by instituting a national ban.
The NBA also convinced sportsbooks to remove specific wagers, including under bets on players on two-way or 10-day contracts. And then there is Colorado, which restricted numerous “negative” wagering markets.
2025: STTP expects this trend to continue. Every scandal or story about athlete harassment will simply fuel the calls to restrict specific betting markets, and even though these prohibitions are ineffectual, they allow advocates to unroll the mission accomplished banner.
2026: With all of the scandals, and the professional sports leagues and NCAA calling for tighter restrictions (either through law, regulation, or self-regulation by the industry), I fully expect more restrictions to be introduced. State-by-state variations are likely to persist, but federal pressure could standardize prohibitions/restrictions on high-risk markets like individual pitches. I took a deep-dive into this recently:
And now, for the new trends to watch in 2026.
