Pennsylvania's ICasinos Breeze To Record Revenue In September
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A record month of online casino play in Pennsylvania propelled the state to $476.3 million in overall commercial gaming revenue in September, a 6.2% increase from a year earlier.
The combined digital slots, table games, and poker revenue last month reached $159.5 million, the Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board reported Wednesday in its monthly revenue statement. That was well above a prior high of $148.2 million in March, and it was 41.5% higher than in September 2022 and 10% more than August’s iCasino revenue.
The revenue at the 17 brick-and-mortar casinos was actually down 1.8% from a year ago, at $275.1 million from slots and table games play, even though January’s opening of the small Parx Shippensburg gave the state one more venue than existed in September 2022.
In addition, Pennsylvania operators collected $36.6 million in taxable revenue from sports betting, $3.2 million from truck stop VGTs, and $1.8 million from fantasy sports contests in September.
State and local tax revenue from the $476.3 million in legalized gambling amounted to $197.7 million last month.
Two new iCasinos helped
The online casino industry in Pennsylvania was among the strongest in the country even before the additions this summer of two newcomers, Golden Nugget and Bally Casino, to bring the number of sites to 20. Licensed to operate independently rather than requiring partnership and tether with a brick-and-mortar casino, Golden Nugget made $4.9 million in revenue in September and Bally earned $1.7 million.
It’s not possible to pinpoint revenue of most other operators, because of the manner in which the state groups their totals under whichever casino holds their iGaming license.
The iCasino sites operating under PENN Entertainment’s Hollywood Casino license, which include Hollywood, Barstool, DraftKings, BetMGM, and PointsBet, dominated play with a combined $64.9 million in revenue.
The FanDuel and Stardust sites using the Valley Forge Casino Resort license earned $35.4 million last month, and BetRivers, PlaySugarHouse, and Borgata on the Rivers Philadelphia license achieved $29.2 million.
Although the combined $2.4 million from iPoker on the four sites that offer it was actually less than a year ago, there were significant collective increases to $114.7 million in slots revenue and $42.4 million from table games play by phone or computer.
Retail industry again fails to grow
As with general trends in recent years for the Pennsylvania industry, all of the revenue growth came in the digital world rather than by in-person casino visits.
In many months the casino revenue is at least flat, if not achieving a modest increase, but September’s retail revenue of $199.9 million from slots and $75.2 million from tables was down a combined 1.8% from September 2022 and off 3.8% from this August.
The most positive exceptions to the downward trend last month were seen in slots play at Rivers Philadelphia, which was up 13.9% from a year ago, and table games revenue at Live! Pittsburgh, which increased 43.2%.
At the same time, Rivers Philadelphia was among a group with sharply negative year-over-year comparisons in table games revenue, which dropped 18% at that property. Still more drastic drops occurred at Hollywood Casino at the Meadows (-42.1%), Presque Isle Downs & Casino (-31.2%), Hollywood Casino York (-26.5%), and Harrah’s Philadelphia (-20.7%).
Harrah’s also had the sharpest decline in slots revenue, of 13.9%.
