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Pennsylvania’s Online Gambling Revenues Set a Record in December 2020

Article by : Helen Feb 1, 2021

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Updated: Apr 6, 2023

While land-based casinos struggle to stay afloat amidst the pandemic, their online counterparts are doing better than ever in Pennsylvania. According to Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board’s monthly report on the casino industry’s financial performance, the last month of 2020 turned out to be a record-setting one for online casinos.

Last December, iGaming generated $71.61 million in revenues, which is 573.99% than what it managed to pull in in December 2019. Online slots accounted for more than half of that revenue – $46.25 million, with online table games pulling in $22.63 million and online poker bringing in the rest ($2.73 million).

Online gambling even managed to outperform land-based casinos, which generated $59.26 million (17.25% less) in slots and table games than their internet-based counterparts.

The year 2020 as a whole was an outstanding one for iGaming: the industry’s revenues skyrocketed by 1583.87%(!) compared to its financial results in 2019. Online gaming brought in $565.78 million – more than table games managed to pull in in 2020 ($504.31 million). However, we need to take into account that the iGaming market is still young and fresh in Pennsylvania – the first licensed iGaming operator got launched online only in July 2019.

Fast forward to the end of 2020, and the state has 13 online gaming websites run by 10 licensees. And something tells us that the incredible fit that online gaming pulled in 2020 may not be its last: the market was an untapped opportunity, and now the supply is racing to meet the demand. December was a successful one not only for online gambling in Pennsylvania: monthly sports wagering handle “eclipsed” the industry’s monthly revenues in the two months before and remains the highest one to date. Sports betting brought in $34.06 million in the last month of 2020 – 199.44% more than in December 2019, while the month-on-month increase amounted to 11.52%.

As for land-based casinos, they remained closed throughout most of December. They were ordered to shut down by Gov. Tom Wolf starting December 12 as a part of additional COVID-19 “mitigation efforts.” The order expired as initially planned on January 4, 2021, so now casinos are back to operating at a maximum 50% occupancy rate. (It’s worth pointing out that it’s double than the caps established in other U.S. states like New Jersey and Nevada.)

Needless to say, land-based casinos weren’t at the top of the game in December 2020: they managed to bring in $42.2 million in slots revenue (a 77.49% drop compared to December 2019), while table games fell from $78.1 million a year before to $17.06 million in the last month of 2020.

However, those casinos with online gambling and sports betting platforms to back them up finished the month with a positive year-on-year change in monthly revenues. Hollywood Casino at Penn National earned 105.19% more than in December 2019, while Valley Forge Casino Resort reported a 30.27% increase in monthly revenues compared to the same period last year.

Each casino’s year-on-year slot revenue change was anywhere between -71.87% for Parx Casino and -86.19% for Lady Luck Casino Nemacolin. Rivers Casino Philadelphia was the unluckiest one in December – it reported $0 in revenues as it remains shut down since November 20, following the City of Philadelphia’s decision to introduce stricter COVID-19 restrictions.

In 2020, 12 out of 13 casinos remained closed for more than 100 days throughout the year (the only lucky exception is Live! Pittsburgh). Of course, it severely impacted their bottom line: they generated 42.62% less slot revenue than in 2019 ($1.36 billion compared to $2.36 billion), while table games showed a 44.19% drop in revenues ($504.31 million in 2020 as opposed to $904.59 million in 2019).