Question of the Day - 09 March 2026

Good question. It got us curious as well.

Figures fluctuate year to year, of course, so the following are order-of-magnitude comparisons rather than exact matches.

The airline industry for passengers (not freight) ranges from around $120 billion to $140 billion annually. It's much more cyclical than the gambling industry, plus sensitive to fuel prices and travel demand, but it's in the vicinity. 

Domestic sales of pharmaceuticals also qualify at $120 billion to $150 billion. Overseas sales by U.S. companies greatly inflate that figure (then again, so does international gambling revenue).

Electric-power distribution, encompassing the delivery of electricity to residential, commercial, and industrial customers, occupies a smaller range of ~$120 billion to $130 billion, with fairly stable demand and heavy regulation (at the state level). 

Meat and poultry processing, residential real estate brokering (including realtor commissions), wireless telecommunications services, and new-car dealerships are all in the $110 billion to $140 billion range.

To put it into other perspective, the gambling industry's annual earnings equate with roughly $375 per U.S. resident and are similar to the gross domestic product of Ecuador, Kenya, and Puerto Rico.