Massachusetts Casino Tax Triples What Sportsbooks Pay

• Massachusetts collected $29.1 million in casino taxes in August, more than three times the $9.4 million sportsbooks paid.
• Encore Boston Harbor and MGM Springfield pay a 25% tax on gaming revenue, while Plainridge Park Casino pays 49%.
• Mobile sportsbooks pay a 20% tax and retail sportsbooks pay 15%, both below the casinos’ rates.
• Sports wagering’s tax take fell 15.6% from August 2025, more than six times the casinos’ 2.5% year-over-year decline.

BOSTON – Massachusetts collected $29.1 million in taxes from its three casinos in August, more than three times the $9.4 million sportsbooks paid the state that month, according to the Massachusetts Gaming Commission’s monthly revenue report. Bettors wagered $571.2 million on sports that month against $101.9 million in casino winnings.

Two Tax Bases

Massachusetts, like most states with legal online gambling, taxes what the house keeps rather than what is wagered, but the casino and sports wagering bases differ in size and in what comes off the top. Casinos pay their tax on gross gaming revenue, the amount patrons lose at the tables and slot machines.

Encore Boston Harbor and MGM Springfield, the state’s two Category 1 resort casinos, generated $62.9 million and $23.9 million in gaming revenue in August and each paid a 25% tax under Massachusetts General Laws Chapter 23K.

Plainridge Park Casino, the state’s Category 2 slots parlor, generated $15.2 million and paid 49%, combining a 40% daily tax with a 9% assessment that funds the Race Horse Development Fund. Combined, the three venues generated $101.9 million in gaming revenue and paid $29.1 million in taxes.

Sports wagering is taxed on “taxable gaming revenue,” the amount left after winning bets are paid and federal excise taxes are subtracted, not the total amount wagered. Bettors put down $571.2 million during the month; sportsbooks held $48.5 million of it once winners were paid, an 8.49% hold rate. After federal excise taxes, $47.1 million counted as taxable gaming revenue, less than half the casinos’ $101.9 million base.

The Rate Gap

Even on that smaller base, sports wagering is taxed at a lower rate than casino gaming. Retail sportsbooks, the betting windows inside Massachusetts’ three casinos, pay 15% under Chapter 23N. The seven licensed mobile operators pay 20%, a rate the Legislature set in Chapter 23N, the 2022 law that placed Massachusetts among states with legal sports betting.

Mobile betting dominates the market. Online apps handled $566.4 million of August’s $571.2 million total and generated $9.33 million of the $9.4 million in sports wagering tax collected, according to the commission’s August revenue report. Retail sportsbooks, with a combined $4.8 million in bets, contributed just $65,786 of that total.

A smaller taxable base taxed at a lower rate is why sports wagering generated less than a third of what casinos paid the state in August, even as bettors moved far more money through sportsbooks than casinos reported in winnings.

A Widening Gap

The disparity grew sharper over the past year. Casino tax revenue slipped 2.5% from the $29.9 million collected in August 2025, the report’s year-over-year table shows.

Sports wagering tax fell much further, down 15.6% from $11.1 million a year earlier, even as the total amount wagered grew 5.3% to $571.2 million; taxable revenue shrank from 10.3% of that handle in August 2025 to 8.2% this August. Both tax streams are down from a year ago, but the sports wagering decline is more than six times as steep.

Where The Money Goes

The two tax streams fund different state accounts. Sports wagering tax revenue flows into a dedicated Sports Wagering Fund that, under Chapter 23N, sends 45% to the state’s General Fund, 27.5% to the Gaming Local Aid Fund, 17.5% to a Workforce Investment Trust Fund, 9% to a Public Health Trust Fund and 1% to a Youth Development and Achievement Fund.

Casino tax dollars follow two paths under Chapter 23K. The 25% tax paid by Encore Boston Harbor and MGM Springfield is split 12 ways, with the largest shares going to the Gaming Local Aid Fund at 20%, the Commonwealth Transportation Fund at 15% and the Education Fund at 14%. Plainridge Park Casino’s 40% tax goes entirely to the Gaming Local Aid Fund, and its 9% assessment goes to the Race Horse Development Fund.

The commission has published monthly casino and Massachusetts online gambling figures side by side since sports betting launched in 2023, and it posts each month’s report the following month, which puts September’s casino and sports wagering figures on the calendar for October.