Pennsylvania iGaming Revenue Tops Slots In August

• Pennsylvania iGaming revenue rose 6.25% to $245.7 million in August, outearning the state’s $213.9 million in slot machine revenue.
• Retail table games fell 18.09% and sports wagering revenue fell 19.92%, pulling total statewide gaming revenue down 2.16%.
• Hollywood Casino at Penn National’s iGaming license generated $95.4 million, nearly 39% of the state’s online casino market.
• iGaming produced $249 million in July, so August’s total held close to that level while every other major category fell.

HARRISBURG, Pa. – Pennsylvania’s online casinos brought in $245.7 million in August, more than the state’s physical slot machines generated the same month, as the Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board’s August revenue report showed iGaming was the only major category to grow while retail tables, sports wagering and the state’s overall gaming revenue all declined.

Growth Is A Slots Story, Not A Table Or Poker One

Interactive slots drove almost all of iGaming’s gain. Online slot revenue rose 8.84% to $195.2 million in August, according to the PGCB’s August report, while the two other interactive verticals moved the opposite direction: online table games fell 2.57% to $48.1 million and online poker fell 5.15% to $2.4 million. Combined, iGaming’s $245.7 million topped the $213.9 million that retail slot machines generated in the same month, a gap of nearly $32 million.

The strength is not new. The board’s July revenue report shows iGaming produced $249 million in July as well, within $3.3 million of August’s total across the fiscal year’s first two months, even as the other categories moved in different directions from one month to the next.

Table Games And Sportsbooks Weigh On The Total

The gains did not carry the month. Retail table games revenue fell 18.09% year over year to $66.4 million, and sports wagering’s taxable revenue fell 19.92% to $39.4 million. Combined, those two declines cost the state about $24.5 million against last August, roughly $10 million more than iGaming’s $14.4 million year-over-year gain.

That gap is why total combined gaming revenue, including fantasy contests, fell 2.16% to $569.7 million even as the state’s most digital vertical grew. Slot machine revenue held closer to flat, down 1.26% to $213.9 million, and video gaming terminal revenue fell 6.39% to $3.4 million. Fantasy contests, the smallest category the board tracks, posted the sharpest percentage gain of any vertical, up 54.63% to just over $1 million.

Hollywood Casino At Penn National Leads A Concentrated List

The board reports iGaming revenue by licensed casino, not by the branded apps that operate under each license. Under that accounting, the license held by Hollywood Casino at Penn National Race Course generated $95.4 million in combined interactive slots, tables and poker revenue in August, according to the board’s licensee breakdown, or nearly 39% of the state’s entire iGaming market.

Valley Forge’s license was a distant second at about $67.5 million, followed by Rivers Philadelphia’s license at roughly $39.9 million and Harrah’s Philadelphia’s license at about $14.2 million. The remaining licensees, including Golden Nugget, Bally’s Pennsylvania and Parx, each generated under $8 million for the month. Hollywood Casino at Penn National and Valley Forge alone accounted for nearly two-thirds of Pennsylvania’s iGaming revenue, one of the fastest-growing corners of legal online gambling for U.S. players.

Pennsylvania’s combined state and local tax on interactive slots runs 54%, and the iGaming vertical generated $113.5 million in tax revenue in August against $108.1 million from physical slot machines, keeping Pennsylvania online gambling ahead of the retail floor on both revenue and tax generated for the month.