Trend: Arrow Is Up For Second Quarter 2025 Online Sports Betting Hold

With about two-thirds of the 2Q25 online sports betting public data available, it’s looking like a significant uptick in hold percentage for the house, across the board, as compared with the previous two quarters. 

While betting handle was down overall during the NBA season, a trend that both the sportsbooks and the NBA will aim to remedy before the next, the hold rate across all sports did make a real climb, as the charting (below) courtesy of financial analyst Alfonso Straffon indicates. 

The second financial quarter including April, May, and June also excludes the majority of March Madness, which was lacking Cinderellas and skewed heavily toward the favorites. The second quarter also dovetails with the start of the Major League Baseball season, which does draw some decent action — but football season it is not.

All of ESPN Bet, Fanatics, and bet365 climbed more three percent from the previous quarter, while both of the market leaders in DraftKings and FanDuel rose nearly two points apiece. 

As noted by Earnings+More, a dip in betting handle is suboptimal for the bookmaking firms, however, the continued emphasis on and interest in parlay wagers is also believed to be partly a cause in some reduction in overall betting volume. 

Peter Jackson, CEO of Flutter Entertainment parent FanDuel Sportsbook, flagged the mild downturn on the hardwood during the first quarter earnings discussion in early May. 

“We believe this handle softness is specific to the basketball market,” Jackson said, “and we have a number of commercial and product initiatives that will specifically enhance basketball engagement next season.” 

One additional factor in the basketball dip was the absence of some of the league’s highest-profile, big market teams in the latter rounds of the playoffs, including the Los Angeles Lakers and Boston Celtics, in a season when the Oklahoma City Thunder took down the Indiana Pacers to win the team’s first title since moving to OKC. 

As it has for each of the previous four frames, FanDuel leads the way in hold percentage, owing to its advantages in parlay mixture and gross gaming revenue derived from it. 

For the period contemplated in charting above, June results are included for New York, North Carolina, Maryland, Indiana, Kansas, and Iowa, with additional states set to report on June throughout July. In other words, it is very likely these figures hold and closely resemble the final figures.