KEY TAKEAWAYS
Maryland sportsbooks took in almost exactly the same amount of bets in September 2026 as a year earlier but kept a noticeably smaller share of it, and the state’s take fell by about a third. Maryland Lottery and Gaming said on October 13, 2026, that bettors wagered $652,200,900 in September, compared with $650,971,388 in September 2025, while the portion sportsbooks retained after paying winners slipped from 11.2% to 9.0%. The state’s contribution from sports wagering totaled $9,096,266, against $13,473,873 a year before, a decline of 32.5%.
That gap between steady wagering and shrinking public revenue is the central point of the report. Maryland taxes what operators earn after prizes and certain deductions, not the dollars wagered, so a lower hold flows straight through to a smaller payment to the state. The same pattern shows up in the fiscal-year totals, where handle is up but the state’s contribution is down.
This article walks through the September figures, explains how the money is divided between education and the general fund, sets out what the numbers do and do not explain, and compares them with September results published by Iowa, Vermont and New York.
What Maryland Reported for September
The agency’s statewide totals cover both retail and mobile sportsbooks. Bettors wagered $652,200,900 during September, a figure that includes free promotional wagers, and sportsbooks paid $593,746,515 back to winners. That means winners received about 91.0% of every dollar wagered, leaving operators with $58,454,385 before deductions and taxes.
After subtracting promotional wagers and other allowed amounts, the statewide taxable win was $45,921,614. Applying the state’s rates produced the $9,096,266 contribution to the state, of which $6,888,242 went to the Blueprint for Maryland’s Future Fund, the state’s education fund, and $2,208,024 went to the state’s General Fund from mobile proceeds.
The September payment was larger than August’s $7,018,667, reported in the agency’s earlier release, but well below the $13,473,873 recorded in September 2025. In dollar terms the state received $4,377,607 less than it did a year earlier despite a marginally higher handle, a change of 0.2% that the agency’s figures imply.
The agency also posts a sportsbook-by-sportsbook breakdown and a handle-and-hold summary by sport in a downloadable spreadsheet. Those details were not part of the narrative release, so this article does not describe individual operators or sports. The percentage changes cited here are calculated by GamingNewsNow from the agency’s published figures.
Retail, Mobile and the Tax Math
Maryland’s wagering is overwhelmingly digital: mobile handle was $641,151,298, roughly 98.3% of the total, while retail sportsbooks accounted for just $11,049,602. Mobile hold fell to 8.8% from 11.1% a year earlier, whereas retail hold rose to 16.3% from 15.1%, though retail is a very small base.
The tax structure explains why the mobile result dominates the state’s revenue. Retail operators contribute 15% of taxable proceeds, and mobile operators pay 20%, split between a 15% payment into the Blueprint fund and a 5% payment into the General Fund. In September, mobile operators generated $8,832,094 of the state’s money and retail operators $264,171.
One line in the comparison deserves attention. The mobile handle includes $10,944,335 in free promotional wagers, which the state allows operators to deduct, compared with $3,642,980 in September 2025. Promotional wagers on mobile roughly tripled from the year before, according to the agency’s two releases. Because those wagers count toward handle but come out before the state’s share is calculated, they widen the distance between headline handle and taxable win.
The table sets September 2026 beside September 2025 using the Maryland Lottery and Gaming releases for each month. Hold is handle less prizes paid, as the agency defines it, and the contribution is the state’s share of taxable proceeds.
| Measure | September 2026 | September 2025 |
|---|---|---|
| Total handle | $652,200,900 | $650,971,388 |
| Prizes paid | $593,746,515 | $577,911,350 |
| Hold in dollars | $58,454,385 | $73,060,038 |
| Hold percentage | 9.0% | 11.2% |
| Mobile handle | $641,151,298 | $636,667,610 |
| Mobile hold | 8.8% | 11.1% |
| Retail handle | $11,049,602 | $14,303,779 |
| Retail hold | 16.3% | 15.1% |
| Mobile free promotional wagers | $10,944,335 | $3,642,980 |
| Contribution to the state | $9,096,266 | $13,473,873 |
Read together, the rows show that volume held steady, mobile hold declined by more than two percentage points and the state’s share fell by $4.4 million.
How the State’s Share Is Built
Maryland’s sports wagering program began in December 2021. According to the agency’s revenue page, which runs through September 2026, $295,616,144 has gone to the Blueprint for Maryland’s Future Fund since launch, and $38,646,653 has gone to the General Fund. A footnote on that page says the General Fund receives 5% of mobile taxable proceeds starting in July 2025.
A third stream comes from prizes that bettors never claim. Sports wagering prizes not redeemed within 182 days are directed to the Maryland Problem Gambling Fund, which had received $5,819,640 through September 2026. That money is separate from the tax contribution and does not depend on hold.
Fiscal years run from July through June, so the agency’s year-to-date table covers three months. The August release showed $465,906,572 in handle, a 9.7% hold and a $7,018,667 contribution. The three-month totals follow the same direction as September alone, as the table below shows.
| July through September | Fiscal 2027 | Fiscal 2026 |
|---|---|---|
| Handle | $1,614,514,807 | $1,449,267,143 |
| Prizes paid | $1,455,271,567 | $1,279,187,231 |
| Hold percentage | 9.9% | 11.7% |
| Contribution to the state | $24,567,696 | $29,765,559 |
On those figures, handle is up about 11.4% while the state’s contribution is down about 17.5%, or roughly $5.2 million.
Why It Matters for the State and the Industry
The Blueprint for Maryland’s Future Fund is the main destination for sports wagering money, taking about three-quarters of September’s contribution. Education funding is tied to hold, which operators do not control from month to month, so the same level of betting can produce very different payments. September’s figures are a clear example: the handle barely moved, but the contribution dropped by roughly $4.4 million.
For operators, the figures show how thin the margin can become once winnings, promotions and taxes are accounted for. With 91.0% of the handle returned to bettors and a 20% tax on mobile taxable win, the share that remains for sportsbooks to cover marketing and operating costs depends heavily on results. The agency’s report does not say how any individual sportsbook fared.
For observers of the market, the report is also a reminder that handle and revenue answer different questions. Handle measures activity, while hold and taxable win measure what operators keep. A flat handle is not the same as flat revenue, and a state budget that counts on gaming taxes may see more variation than headline betting totals suggest.
What the Figures Do and Don’t Show
The release reports results but does not explain them. It offers no reason for the lower hold, and none of the sources reviewed for this article attributes it to a specific cause, so no explanation is offered here. Hold depends on game outcomes and bettor behavior across many events, and the agency’s monthly figures are a snapshot rather than a forecast.
The comparison with September 2025 is also a single-month view. The August 2026 release and the fiscal-year totals point the same way, but three months is a short period, and the report covers only the opening weeks of a football season that Iowa’s administrator described as historically the busiest part of the sports wagering calendar. The percentage changes in this article are calculations from published numbers, not figures the agency itself reported as changes.
Handle needs careful reading too. It includes free promotional wagers, so it is not the same as cash staked by bettors. The agency’s own definition treats hold as handle less prizes paid, while taxable win is lower after deducting promotional wagers and other amounts, which is why taxable win of $45.9 million is below hold of $58.5 million.
Market Context: Other States’ September Reports
Other regulators have published September results as the football season begins. Iowa’s Racing and Gaming Commission said on October 9, 2026, that handle was $290.24 million, essentially flat against September 2025, while sports wagering revenue was $23.75 million, up 4.58%, and state sports wagering taxes were $1.60 million. One sentence in the release refers to August, but its headings label the figures as September, and this article treats them as September data. Ten licensed entities run online sportsbooks in Iowa.
Vermont’s Department of Liquor and Lottery reported total handle receipts of $19,758,552 for September 2026 and adjusted gross sports wagering revenue of $1,710,695. At a 31.7% revenue share rate, the state’s share was $542,813.
New York reports by week, on a cash basis, and taxes mobile gross gaming revenue at 51%. Adding the four reporting weeks ending September 6 through September 27, 2026, mobile handle was about $2.26 billion and gross gaming revenue about $148.9 million. The four weeks ending September 7 through September 28, 2025, produced handle of about $2.17 billion and revenue of about $194.6 million. On those calculations New York’s implied hold fell to 6.6% from 9.0%, even as handle rose about 4.4%. The weeks do not match calendar months, so the comparison is approximate.
What to Watch Next
The next Maryland release will cover October 2026 and will show whether the lower hold continues into the heart of the football season. Handle, hold and promotional play are the three numbers that determine the size of the state’s share, and the agency publishes all three each month.
New York’s weekly mobile reports give an earlier read, since the commission updates them every week and the latest version already includes the week ending October 4, 2026. Iowa and Vermont also publish monthly reports, so their October results are expected to follow.
The agency’s full spreadsheet for September, which lists each licensed sportsbook and the statewide handle and hold by sport, is the place to look for operator-level detail that the narrative release leaves out.
Frequently Asked Questions
Sources
- Maryland Lottery and Gaming — Sports Wagering Contributes $9.1 Million to the State During September ’26 (October 13, 2026)
- Maryland Lottery and Gaming — Sports Wagering Revenue Reports (data through September 2026)
- Maryland Lottery and Gaming — Sports Wagering Contributes $13.5 Million to the State During September ’25 (October 10, 2025)
- Maryland Lottery and Gaming — Sports Wagering Contributes $7 Million to the State During August ’26 (September 10, 2026)
- Iowa Racing and Gaming Commission — September 2026 Revenue Information (October 9, 2026)
- Vermont Department of Liquor and Lottery — Sports Wagering Summary Report, September 2026
- New York State Gaming Commission — Weekly Mobile Sports Wagering Report (through week ending October 4, 2026)