Gambling revenue in Pennsylvania increased 24.4% year-on-year to $375.7m in February, despite the state reporting a loss for its regulated sports betting market.
The overall figure for February was up from $302.0m in the same month last year but was 4.4% lower than $393.1m posted in January of this year.
Figures published by the Pennsylvania Gambling Control Board (PGCB) showed year-on-year growth in almost all areas of the market, with the exception of sports betting where revenue plummeted from $16.4m in February 2021 to a loss of $442,847.
This was the first month in the history of the regulated Pennsylvania market in which operators made a loss.
Retail revenue reached $1.0m but online revenue came in at a loss of $1.5m. Players staked a total of $597.1m on sports during the month, an increase of 17.2% on last year.
Valley Forge, with its partner FanDuel, was the most successful sports betting operation in February, posting $1.6m in revenue. Hollywood Casino at Penn National’s Caesars Sportsbook was the only other operation with revenue in excess of $1m, reporting $1.1m for the month.
However, a total of six operators reported a sports betting loss, with Hollywood Casino at the Meadows’ Barstool Sportsbook suffering the highest lost ($3.3m) of the month.
Turning to online casino, revenue in February reached $102.4m – an increase of 31.7% on last year. Online slots accounted for 68.1% of all igaming revenue in the month while $31.4m came from online table games and the remaining $2.9m came from online poker.
Hollywood Casino at Penn National retained top spot in the igaming market with $42.7m in revenue, ahead of Rivers Casino Philadelphia on $24.5m and then the Valley Forge Casino Resort with $18.5m.
In terms of land-based casino, retail slots comfortably remained the main source of revenue in the state’s regulated market, with revenue here rising 33.5% year-on-year to $194.7m.
Retail table games revenue climbed 29.6% to $74.4m, while the PGCB also noted that video gaming terminal revenue increased by 20.5% to $3.0m.
Fantasy sports contests was the only other market segment to suffer a decline in revenue, with this falling 21.5% to $1.6m. DraftKings led the way with $822,488 in revenue, ahead of long-time rival FanDuel on $575,735.
