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USA Commercial Gaming Off to a Flying Start With a $4.43 Billion Jan Win
By Jeff Osienya Mar 13, 2022 IndustryThe American Gaming Association has published a new report highlighting the stellar performance of the USA’s commercial gaming industry after recording a $4.50 billion monthly win in January 2022. Let’s dive deeper into the record-shattering numbers.USA’s commercial gaming sector is already off to a shining entry into 2022 if we go by the most recent numbers unveiled by the American Gaming Association commercial revenue tracker. After posting historic figures over the 2021 calendar year, the gaming scene has entered 2022 with a bang, following a $4.50 billion win for January. This figure is the best ever start by the US gaming industry (traditional casino gaming, iGaming, and sports betting) in a year in its history.
AGA, the country’s gaming industry trade body, has religiously monitored the performance for each gambling-legal USA state for more than two decades, month after month and year after year. So, besides the January 2021 financial performance, the AGA report also featured comparisons to January 2020 and January 2021, where the combined revenue jumped by a healthy 21.4% and 31.8%, respectively. However, it’s worth pointing out that in the two months pitted against January this year in the report, the gaming industry was still suffering through the COVID 19 pandemic. Thankfully, this situation has since improved significantly.
Additionally, despite the impressive start to the year, the commercial gaming revenue slid 3.3% from the $4.65 billion collected in December 2021. Still, the revenue garnered for the first month of the year was no mean feat as the US gaming scene continued with the winning streak that started in March 2021. As such, January 2022 marks the 11th successive month that the combined gaming revenue exceeded the $4 billion barrier. The stellar $4 billion-plus performance train is even more remarkable because the USA commercial gaming revenue had never broken the $4 billion mark before March last year.
Impressive Growth Seen Across the Majority of Commercial Gaming Jurisdictions
Moving on to state-by-state data from the AGA commercial gaming revenue tracker, the results point to an incredibly bright future for the industry. The tracker reports that 23 out of 27 jurisdictions with regulated commercial gaming saw their revenue streams grow compared to how they performed two years ago, in January 2020. The only states that saw their revenue streams contract relative to their previous two-year performances were Rhode Island (-15.5%), Kansas (-12.0%), Maine (-2.3%), and Oklahoma (-2.1%).
The annual visitation trends across the five regional markets that publish admission data delivered a mixed bag of results. On one hand, compared to January 2021, casino admissions dropped in Mississippi by 9%, Iowa by 7.5%, and Missouri by 7.4%. Yet, on the other hand, admissions increased in Louisiana by 10.6% and in Illinois by a whopping 257.7%. Well, it’s vital to note that the triple-digit visitation jump in Illinois was brought about by the fact that most of the state’s casinos were closed for most of January 2021. At that time, The Prairie State was still deep in the fight against the spread of the Coronavirus pandemic.
Moreover, looking at the five states above, the link between visitation and the average player expenditure continued to be apparent in January this year. The admissions levels have still not snapped pack to their pre-pandemic heights, reporting a -13%, -19%, -23%, -29%, and -30% deficit in Mississippi, Iowa, Missouri, Illinois, and Louisiana, respectively compared to January 2020. But then, the average gaming revenue accrued from slot machines and table games per visitor improved by 29%, 43%, 35%, 23%, and 37%, respectively, across all the five states.
Brick and Mortar Gaming Continues to Lead the Pack
It must be said many states are increasingly embracing mobile gaming and making it legal across their jurisdictions. However, the latest figures suggest that for now, brick-and-mortar gaming will continue to bring in the big bucks.
Evidence of this is the fact that combined slots and table gaming generated $3.50 Billion in revenue across the states in January. This marked an ample 24.1% uptick from January 2021 and a hardly noticeable 0.03% increase from January 2020. And if we dig deeper into the January 2020 performance against this year’s January showing, casino slot machines revenue saw a 2.9% climb, whereas revenue from table games slid by 3.5%.
Generally, the nationwide performance of brick-and-mortar gaming was impressive. For example, 15 out of 25 states with traditional brick and mortar slots and/or table games experienced a revenue jump compared to the reported figures in January 2020. However, as for the year-over-year comparisons, revenue growth was seen by every market except Kansas, Delaware, and Missouri, whose performance dipped by 9.5%, 4.4%, 1.2%, respectively.
Sports Betting and iGaming Show Their Strength With Consistent Growth
iGaming and sports betting verticals also continued with their upward trend compared to the same month last year and the year before, posting double and triple-digit jumps, respectively. The nationwide sports betting handle hit a remarkable $9.27 billion, more than double that of January 2021 and more than five times the numbers recorded two years ago in the same month.
Furthermore, the January 2022 nationwide handle smashed the monthly handle record set in October 2021 ($7.55 billion) by 22.8%. Bear in mind, however, that the $9.27 billion national handle figure was published without Arizona’s January performance as the state hadn’t reported its numbers by the time AGA’s numbers were compiled. Overall, sportsbooks across 26 regulated sports betting markets countrywide won a $604.2 million revenue for themselves, a 59.8% surge year over year.
New markets in the US sports betting sector were significant drivers for the growth, with six more jurisdictions launching commercial sports betting markets between January 2021 and January 2022. New York, for instance, contributed over 18% of the total January handle after bringing in a whopping $1.67 billion worth of wagers in the first three weeks of launching its regulated mobile sports betting market. As a result, The Empire State officially became the largest US sports betting market right off the bat.
iGaming, on the other hand, garnered $399.5 million in the first month of this year, effectively setting a new monthly best and posting an 83.6% year-over-year surge. Part of the record-shattering iGaming win can be attributed to the boost received from a new iGaming market that wasn’t live in January 2021. Connecticut joined Delaware, Michigan, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia in the iGaming scene after unveiling its online casino gaming market in October 2021. In total, iGaming and sports betting accounted for 22.3% of the commercial gaming revenue generated in January 2022.
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