With just over a year and a half of experience, the online gaming market in Pennsylvania continues to reach new heights. The market has grown considerably over the past few months and in December, managed to reach over $71 million in earnings from casino and poker games. This is a huge increase from the $10.6 million earned in December 2019.
What Contributed to the Growth?
Several factors can be attributed to the growth of the iGaming market in Pennsylvania. First, you have the fact that it is still a relatively new market. New customers continue to create accounts as brand awareness grows via advertising and word of mouth.
Sports betting expanded in the United States which led to new operators launching in Pennsylvania along with new services from existing operators. It must also be considered that top brands like FanDuel and PokerStars had just launched one year ago, so they were not as established as they are now, which of course, led to more revenues for the state.
Casinos in the state, as well as across the US, shut down in March, which pushed players to online gaming. The shutdown was due to the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. As players stayed at home due to social distancing concerns and stay at home orders, there was a huge increase in online player traffic.
Casinos have reopened in Pennsylvania, but restrictions are still in place. The facilities are operating at a lower capacity and some services that players are used to are simply not on offer anymore. Players enjoyed the online gambling experience and continued to take part, even after the venues got back to work.
December Breakdown
In total, December saw $71,609,260 in revenues for the online casino and poker industries combined. Table games were quite popular that month, bringing in 55% of the wagers at online casinos. The game also generated around 33% of the revenues.
Penn National was the top operator for the month. The brand was able to contribute almost one-third of the revenue for the month. Rivers Philadelphia came in next at 27% and Valley Forge brought in around 15%.
It is interesting to note that the top operating online casinos in the state are ran by sports-focused brands. DraftKings Casino, BetRivers and FanDuel seem to be the favorites among players when it comes to casino gaming. Sports bettors seem to be taking part in casino games more often now, which helps to explain the increase in table game activity.
For online casino gaming, the industry brought in just over $68 million of the full monthly total. This was an increase of 20% from November and a whopping 777% from the previous December. For online poker, the market created $2.7 million in earnings. This was an increase of 13% from November and 8% from last year.
Sports betting is also popular in the state. In December, the total industry brought in $45.3 million. Of that amount, $44.2 million was generated from online betting.
As these industries continue to grow, we expect that monthly revenue totals will only reach new heights. We will continue to monitor the industry and report on new earnings as they are provided.
