Pennsylvania gambling breaks $5bn revenue barrier for first time

Revenue across the entire Pennsylvania ecosystem has surged to record heights during the fiscal year, following June’s $389.82m performance that represented a slight 0.24 per cent year-on-year improvement.

Retail slots took the largest slice of that figure through the 30 days after increasing 5.48 per cent to $192.99m (2021: $182.97), ahead of land-based table games which dropped 1.89 per cent to $76.1m (2021: $77.58m), with igaming slots next in line with the largest percentage of increase of 19.57 to close at $72.27m (2021: $60.45m).

Sports wagering brought the largest decline of 62.69 per cent to finish at $12.76m (2021: $34.22m), with igaming tables, video gaming terminals and online poker up 7.67 per cent, 6.15 per cent, and 7.56 per cent to $28m (2021: $26m), $3.5m (2021: $3.3m), and $2.6m (2021: $2.41m). Fantasy contents dropped 20.39 per cent from 2021’s $1.89m to $1.5m.

On a property by property basis, Hollywood Casino at Penn National came out on top with revenue of $56.96m, an improvement of 5.91 per cent YoY from $53.78m.

This was narrowly ahead of Parx Casino, the leader of June 2021, which dropped 10.39 per cent to $52.35m (2021: $58.42m), with Rivers Casino Philadelphia in third at $42.67m, down 2.22 per cent from $43.64m. 

The largest percentage increase was felt at Hollywood Morgantown which increased 267.84 per cent to $4.87m (2021: $1.32m), as Valley Forge Casino Resort reported the largest drop of 18.36 per cent from $42.31m during June 2021 to $34.54m this time around.

In turn, this saw the Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board report that overall revenue for the regulated market during the fiscal year, which ran from July 1, 2021, to June 30, 2022, toppled the $5bn barrier for the first time.

This record level came via revenue of $5.04bn, which is attributed to best numbers being reported for table games, along with continued growth across the sports wagering, igaming and VGT segments.

Combined tax revenue from these games during the fiscal year will also top $2bn for the first time, with the estimated amount, prior to any adjustments by the PA Department of Revenue, at $2.05bn.

The previous high for gaming revenue and tax revenue in a fiscal year was during 2020/2021 with $3.87bn and $1.59bn, respectively.

All segments through the latest reported period secured YoY increases except for fantasy contents which dropped 3.11 per cent to $27.3m (2021: $28.18m).

Slot machine revenue scaled to the summit of the revenue table courtesy of a 27.69 per cent increase to close at $2.41bn (2020/21: $1.88bn), ahead of the 37.34 per cent igaming uptick to $1.23bn (2020/2: $897.21m) and table games’ $1.01bn, up 40.72 per cent from $721.76m.

The Keystone State’s sports wagering ecosystem grew 2.22 per cent to close the fiscal year at $315.71m (2020/2: $308.84m), as VGT’s finished with a 32.7 per cent increase to $41.58m (2021: $31.33m).