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Pennsylvania online casino revenue off to a record start in 2022

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(© Maksym Yemelyanov – stock.adobe.com)

The online gambling industry in the U.S. is a hot topic right now, especially after it has come off a record year that brought in GGR (gross gaming revenue) of $52.99 billion across all verticals, including online casinos, sports betting and iGaming. Many states have liberalized online gambling laws over the past few years and this has led to major iGaming companies champing at the bit to get a piece of the action.

However, while a strong performance was always expected as revenues have been growing month on month, it was how Pennsylvania’s online casinos performed in 2021 that really caught the eye. Well, that performance has continued in the same vein at the start of 2022 after the state recorded another record-breaking month for January.

Thanks to the state legalizing many forms of online gambling, such as online casino gaming and sports betting, back in 2017, Pennsylvania was one of the top-performing states throughout 2021, and online casino gambling was a big reason behind this. In terms of gross gaming revenue, Pennsylvania finished second to Nevada and just ahead of New Jersey with a GGR of $4.83 billion, an increase of just over 79% on the previous year. Online casino gambling accounted for almost a quarter of that GGR.

Much of this revenue comes from strategic marketing by the casino and website owners creating informative sites that enable players to review and sign up to the best Pennsylvania online casinos in websites such as online-casinos.com and avoid the risk of signing up for unregulated casinos. As a result, players from the Keystone State contributed to a combined online casino GGR for 2021 of $1.3 billion. That figure increased 91.1% from the previous year. Aside from this all being excellent news for the operators within the state, Pennsylvania itself will also approve of the $466.4 million in gaming taxes that this revenue brought them throughout 2021.

PA kicks off 2022 in the same vein

With records broken in 2021, many analysts believed that this would continue into 2022 and so far that has proved more than true. In fact, online gambling performance in January 2022 obliterated the performance recorded in the same month last year by 26%. All PA gaming verticals totalled $393.1 million for the month, according to the Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board (PGCB).

Again, a big slice of the revenue was brought in by the state’s online casinos, including Barstool, BetMGM, Fanduel, Borgata, and Parx Casino, which are each operated by many of the land-based casinos within Pennsylvania. Between them, the operators brought in online revenue of $129,993,032 throughout the first month of 2022. That broke the previous record of $127.6 million set the previous month. That figure was also up 42.5% from the $91.2 million posted in January 2021.

Online casinos generate more revenue than sports betting within Pennsylvania

In comparison, revenue brought in from sports betting was less than half of what online casino gambling brought in. Fueled by fans wagering on events such as the NFL playoffs, the College Football National Game, and an average for some, Royal Rumble, sports betting revenue was $53.4 million, an improvement of 8.3% in January 2021.

Online casino revenue for January 2022 by operator

  • Hollywood Penn National – $53,243,158
  • Rivers Philadelphia – $33,538,309
  • Valley Forge – $20,981,100
  • Mount Airy – $7,490,245
  • Parx – $4,174,506
  • Harrah’s Philadelphia, $3,832,400
  • Live Philadelphia – $3,477,831
  • Mohegan Sun Pocono – $2,284,725
  • Presque Isle – $1,555,138
  • Wind Creek – $1,415,620

Once again, it is the big three that account for the vast majority of that GGR. Between them, Hollywood Penn National, Rivers Philadelphia, and Valley Forge have a market share of 81.3% which is not surprising, as they have some of the biggest online casino brands under their licenses. Hollywood Penn National, for example, has Barstool, BetMGM, and Draftkings, while Valley Forge has Fanduel operating under its license.

Over 70% of online casino GGR is generated by video slots

Online casinos in Pennsylvania offer poker, virtual and live table games such as online blackjack, and video slots, but it is the latter that attracts the largest volume of wagers. In fact, slots gaming accounted for 71.9% of the revenue brought in by online casinos in January. The total GGR of video slots was $93,518,436 for the month.

Table games such as roulette, blackjack, baccarat, and craps both in a virtual and live setting brought in $33,084,504, while poker rooms at the online casinos had revenues totalling $3,390,093.

Will records continue to break throughout 2022?

It goes without saying the iGaming industry in the US is fully booming, especially in states such as Pennsylvania, Nevada, and New Jersey. However, can this revenue growth continue throughout the year?

It is difficult to suggest that it won’t, as many markets are still young and have plenty of room to grow. New brands continue to enter the state’s markets while existing platforms continue expanding by adding bigger and better iGaming developers such as Evolution, Playtech, Greentube, and Yggdrasil.

Plus, with the pandemic seemingly behind us, tourism rebounding to pre-pandemic levels, and lives returning to normal, we can only assume that 2022 will prove to be yet another record-breaking year for Pennsylvania online casinos.

Story by James Donaghue

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