Sports Betting Market Growth and the Rise of MLB Prop Bets
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An Industry That Grew Faster Than Anyone Predicted
When the US Supreme Court struck down the federal sports betting ban in 2018, projections for the industry’s growth were optimistic. The reality has outpaced every forecast. The global sports betting market was valued at $108.92 billion in 2024, with projections reaching $198.53 billion by 2030 at roughly 10% annual growth. In the United States alone, sports betting revenue hit a record $16.96 billion in 2025 – up 22.8% from the previous year – on a total legal handle of $166.94 billion. The cumulative handle since the repeal of PASPA has now surpassed $600 billion.
Those numbers describe a market that has grown from niche to mainstream in under a decade. For K-prop bettors, the growth story matters because it shapes the competitive landscape: how many operators are fighting for your business, how deep the prop markets go, and how much analytical infrastructure is available to bettors who want to find edge.
The US Market: Where the Volume Lives
The United States drives the lion’s share of global sports betting growth. Bill Miller, CEO of the American Gaming Association, framed the 2025 record year as validation of the regulated model: sports betting belongs under state and tribal regulation, and that framework is how consumers are protected and communities share in the benefits. State-licensed operators paid $3.71 billion in taxes in 2025 alone, a 32% increase from the prior year. The Super Bowl in 2025 generated $1.39 billion in legal wagers – a single event producing more handle than the entire US market generated in a month just five years earlier.
MLB’s share of the US betting market is smaller than the NFL or NBA, but it has grown disproportionately fast among prop bettors. Baseball’s daily schedule – games nearly every day from April to October – creates a volume of prop-betting opportunities that no other major sport matches. A football bettor might analyse 15 games per week. A baseball prop bettor can evaluate 15 games per day. That volume, combined with the granularity of pitcher-level statistics, makes MLB props a natural home for analytical bettors who want to deploy systematic strategies.
The UK Market: A Different Landscape, Similar Trajectory
The UK sports betting market operates in a fundamentally different regulatory environment but is following a parallel growth curve. Annual gross gambling yield from sports betting reached approximately 2.48 billion pounds in 2025, and the broader UK market is projected to reach $21.3 billion by 2030 at an 11.4% compound annual growth rate. Nearly half of UK adults placed a bet in any given four-week period in 2025, and around 290 million online bets on real events are placed monthly.
The UK market’s relationship with baseball is younger but accelerating. The MLB London Series introduced tens of thousands of British fans to the sport, and operators have expanded their baseball offerings in response. The growth in US-sport betting among UK punters is not limited to baseball – NFL, NBA, and even college sports have gained traction – but baseball’s daily rhythm and prop-bet depth make it particularly well suited for the type of analytical betting that UK bettors are increasingly drawn to.
Andrew Rhodes, CEO of the UK Gambling Commission, noted that operators are seeing growth in sports beyond traditional horse racing and football, with US-based sports expanding in popularity. That regulatory observation aligns with the commercial reality: UK-licensed operators are investing in American sports coverage because that is where the marginal customer growth is coming from.
Prop Bets as the Growth Engine
Within the broader sports betting market, prop bets and same-game parlays have emerged as disproportionate growth drivers. The proliferation of prop bets and live betting have dramatically increased engagement, pushing handle and revenue figures beyond what traditional moneyline and totals markets could achieve alone. Prop bets appeal to recreational bettors because they create a personal stake in individual player performance, turning a generic game into a focused narrative about one pitcher’s strikeout total or one batter’s hit count.
For the K-prop market specifically, the growth in recreational prop betting is a double-edged dynamic. More recreational volume means softer lines – the average bet placed on a K prop is less informed than the average bet placed on a moneyline, which keeps the market less efficient and preserves opportunities for analytical bettors. But more volume also attracts more attention from sportsbook risk managers, who gradually sharpen lines as the market matures. The window of easy edge narrows over time, which means the bettors who build systematic models now will have an advantage over those who enter the market later when it is more efficiently priced.
Technology is accelerating the prop-market evolution. DraftKings integrated AR overlays for visualising player-prop data in a 2025 app update, making it easier for casual bettors to engage with player props. As the interface becomes more accessible, the volume will continue to grow – and so will the sportsbook’s investment in pricing accuracy. The equilibrium will eventually shift toward sharper lines and thinner edges, which makes the current period – where analytical K-prop bettors can still find consistent value – a window worth exploiting.
The market trajectory is clear: sports betting is growing globally, prop bets are growing within sports betting, and MLB K props are growing within the prop-bet category. Whether that growth benefits you as a bettor depends on whether you have the analytical infrastructure to find edge in an increasingly competitive environment. For the operational details of how UK bettors can access MLB prop markets – which platforms, which odds formats, which regulatory constraints – the guide on MLB strikeout odds covers the practical landscape.
How big is the global sports betting market?
The global sports betting market was valued at approximately $108.92 billion in 2024, with projections reaching $198.53 billion by 2030 at roughly 10% annual growth. The US market alone generated $16.96 billion in revenue in 2025, while the UK market produced approximately 2.48 billion pounds in gross gambling yield. Both markets are on upward trajectories driven by regulatory expansion and the proliferation of prop bets.
Why are prop bets growing faster than traditional bet types?
Prop bets create personal engagement with individual player performance, which appeals to recreational bettors beyond what generic moneyline or totals bets offer. Same-game parlays amplify this effect by letting bettors combine player props with game outcomes. The growth in prop betting has been reinforced by technology – improved app interfaces and real-time data visualisation make it easier for casual bettors to engage with player-level markets.
Published by the mlb Strikeout Prop Bets team.
