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AGA: US Gaming Revenue From Jan to Aug Beats 2019 Win
By Jeff Osienya Oct 21, 2021 IndustryUSA’s gaming is on a $4.4 billion-plus hot streak thanks to a favorable summer calendar with two extra weekends and robust tourism. Better still, gaming revenue for the first 8 months of 2021 has already surpassed last year’s 12-month performance.The American Gaming Association (AGA), USA’s gaming industry trade body, has published a new report per its Commercial Gaming Revenue Tracker showing the consistently stellar post-pandemic performance of the US gambling sector. The revenue accrued from brick-and-mortar casino gaming, sports betting, and iGaming hit an impressive $4.4 billion in August, besting August 2019 – the last August with fully-fledged gaming, by 19%.
According to AGA’s latest report, America’s commercial gaming industry continued with its record-smashing streak through August, owing to a surge in summer travel. Better still, this year’s early summer calendar was boosted by its two extra weekend days that weren’t present in the 2019 summertime season.
However, the $4.4 billion from August was 9.8% lower than the record-setting July win, which came in at $4.92 billion. Based on AGA’s data, the July-August revenue drop was experienced due to reduced sports betting activity on both retail and internet verticals.
US Gaming Records $4.4 Billion Plus Revenue for the Sixth Month in a Row
Despite the slight revenue decline, August was the sixth successive month where USA’s gaming sector generated over $4.4 billion in revenue from nationwide commercial gaming activity. Owing to the shining 6-month hot streak, the period from March to August 2021 goes down in the books as the highest-grossing 6 months in America’s history of regulated gaming.
Of all US states with regulated gambling activity, Nevada has been the single-largest contributor to the incredible numbers, producing about a quarter of the revenue. Moreover, from March to August, the Silver State has also been on a roll, steadily generating monthly gaming revenue of over $1 billion. This mind-blowing performance was last seen in Nevada 14 years ago. Similarly, in July, Nevada also saw its best month in history after racking up revenue of $1.36 billion from commercial gaming.
Nevada aside, there was a general upward trend for commercial gaming revenue for most states in August compared to August 2019. Overall, 20 out of all the 25 states with regulated gambling markets saw a substantial increase in gross gaming revenue. For the remaining 5 states, four of them saw mild single-digit declines, and only one experienced a double-digit dip.
In Rhode Island, Oklahoma, West Virginia, and Kansas, gaming revenue slid by 4.5%, 4.7%, 5.0%, and 8.3%, respectively, whereas Louisiana had a 28.2% slump. Louisiana’s poor performance was due to the devastation of Hurricane Ida, which led to the closure of casinos in the south-eastern part of the state over the last week of August.
Back to the national spotlight, for the said 6-month period (March-August), USA’s gaming industry has garnered a whopping $34.15 billion in commercial gaming revenue from January to August 2021. This is 18% more than what the industry had produced over the same period in 2019 when the gaming sector was fully operational.
Additionally, the 8-month record performance has already blown past the $29.98 billion the country generated during the entire pandemic-stricken 2020 calendar year. Besides, 19 of the 25 US States with commercial gaming have already accrued more revenue than what they saw for the whole of 2019.
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