UMass Donahue Institute

A new report by UMass Amherst indicates that while legalized sports betting in Massachusetts involved significant statewide financial activity in 2023, it has not created many new jobs. However, its main positive economic contribution comes from the tax revenue it generates for the state.

The purpose of this report, prepared by the UMass Amherst Donahue Institute’s Economic & Public Policy Research group and as part of the Social and Economic Impacts of Gambling in Massachusetts (SEIGMA) project, measure how the Massachusetts economy has been changed by the legalization of sports betting. Legalization introduced three retail sports betting operators, operating within the three existing casino locations, and nine mobile or online sports betting operators (six of which operated through 2023) into the Commonwealth’s gambling industry.

Data sources included casino and mobile sports betting operations (spending on vendors, employees, and government entities), gross gaming revenues, and patron spending behavior. These economic activity measures were input into an economic model and thus captured the ripple effects of this direct activity on the Massachusetts economy.

Key findings:

Employment

• In 2023, mobile sports betting operators who operate in Massachusetts employed an average of 10,265 employees across the U.S. industry in a quarter.
• Nearly 12% percent of those employees, an average of 1,185 in a quarter, were employed in Massachusetts. However, most of that employment either existed in Massachusetts prior to the legalization of sports betting or was remote work that was not necessarily tied to the expansion of gambling in Massachusetts.

Vendor Spending

• Sports betting operators spent $70.8 million to Massachusetts firms.
• Major spending areas related to setting up and maintaining data centers in a new location, new spending on marketing, advertising, and promotions, and new spending on professional technical services related to legal and regulatory requirements.

Revenues

• Taxes on gross gaming revenue in this sector generated a total of $90.8 million for the Commonwealth in 2023. When considered with casino gross gaming revenue taxes, sports betting taxes represented 22 percent of all non-lottery gaming tax revenue that year.
• Gross gaming revenue has increased 155 percent over the past decade while gaming tax revenues only increased 72 percent, due in part to the lower tax rates on each new form of gambling introduced.

Consumer Spending

• In 2023, bettors placed $4.7 billion worth of online sports bets in Massachusetts and approximately $4.25 billion was paid out in prizes to gamblers, resulting in over $450 million in revenue.

Total Impacts

• Sports betting’s positive impact on the economy is largely due to the tax revenue it generates for the Commonwealth and the subsequent expenditure of those funds.
• This tax revenue already provides significant support to Massachusetts municipalities and organizations through dedicated allocations to five different state funds. In FY 2024 alone, $117.6 million was collected and distributed to these funds.
• The largest portion of sports wagering tax revenue is designated for the General Fund, to which 45% is allotted. The other allotments were as follows: Local Aid to municipalities (28%), Workforce Investment Trust Fund (18%), Public Health Trust Fund (9%), and the Youth Development and Achievement Fund (1%), a financial assistance program that aims to support Massachusetts students in higher education at approved institutions. The Public Health Trust Fund was established to specifically allocate resources to research, prevention, intervention, treatment, and recovery support services in order to mitigate the harmful effects of problem gambling and related issues.

“In studying the legalization of sports betting in Massachusetts, we observed many similarities, and some important differences between sports betting and the legalization of casino gambling in the Commonwealth. In particular, the large mobile component of sports wagering limits the level of direct employment in the state. Our findings will be useful to the Mass. Gaming Commission as it further considers future decisions and policy directions of the state’s gambling industry,“ said Mark Melnik, director of the institute’s Economic & Public Policy Research (EPPR) group.

“Our initial findings clearly show that while sports betting generates significant tax revenue for Massachusetts, its overall positive economic impact, particularly on employment, is considerably smaller than that of casino gambling, in large part because of a relatively small local employment base," said Tom Peake, the study’s project lead at EPPR.

The report’s findings were presented to the Massachusetts Gaming Commission (MGC) as part of the ongoing work of the Social and Economic Impacts of Gambling Impact in Massachusetts (SEIGMA) group. The UMass Amherst School of Public Health & Health Sciences has been engaged by the MGC since 2013 to carry out a comprehensive, multiyear research project, believed to be the first of its kind, on the social and economic impacts of introducing casino gambling in Massachusetts. The Economic & Public Policy Research group at the Donahue Institute examines the economic impact side of the state’s gaming industry.

July 30, 2025