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USA First Quarter 2021 Gambling Revenues Top $11 Billion
By Shane Addinall May 21, 2021 IndustryJoin us as we investigate the 2021 Gross Gaming Revenue reports provided by the American Gaming Association (AGA) to see where the industry is flourishing, where there is room for improvement, and what the impact legal online gambling has been.We delved into the detailed 2021 gambling revenue reports provided by the American Gaming Association (AGA)and the results across land-based and virtual gambling are simply astounding.
The regulation and introduction of legal online gambling to several states in the US are proving to be both well received by locals and timely financial aid to regions that otherwise would find themselves at a loss for much-needed funding.
Most importantly all this success has been achieved from an existing gambling community and without any notable increase in the risk of gambling harm.
Online Gambling Shines Bright
2021 has seen a positive upswing in gambling activity across the continental United States with the industry reporting a first-quarter Gross Gaming Revenue (GGR) figure of just over $11 billion. This figure represents a 17.7% increase over the same period in 2020 and an even more impressive increase of 4.4% increase over the Q1 2019 results.
Unfortunately, the casino games slice of the gambling sector is still suffering from closures and concerns over gatherings in confined spaces with slot showing a nominal 10% increase and table games coming in over 10% under the 2019 and 2020 figures.
Where the casino industry is showing incredible growth is in the online space. Online casino gambling generated a stellar $784.5 million in Q1 2021, which is an increase of 645% over 2019 and 239% over 2020.
It is also important to note that these figures are generated by only a handful of states, as shown in the table above. Should online gambling have been active across all US states the results could easily have been ten times what we are seeing now.
Sports Fans Stand and Deliver
In addition to their love of gambling Americans genuinely love their sports. The intersection of these two national pastimes is evident in the first quarter of sports betting results.
Sports betting, which includes both land-based bookmaking and online betting, delivered $961.1 million in gross gaming revenue for the three month period. These results represent an increase of 450.6% and 207.2% over 2019 and 2020 respectively.
It is also worth noting that the 2021 NFL season is set to kick off on September 9th. Not only is American Football the most popular sport on the continent but it also marks the beginning of the country’s hottest betting season.
With such a strong showing this early in the year pundits are bullish about the potential for this year’s NFL betting season.
March Marches to its Own Beat
The AGA reports showed an interesting contraction and expansion on gambling revenues in the first quarter with January and February posting year over year losses of -7.8% and -14.6% respectively.
However, March was determined not to follow suit with gaming revenues soaring by 12.9% to an astounding $4.48 billion. Even more impressive than the astronomical percentile growth is the fact the previous all-time high GGR figure for the USA was the $4.00 billion generated in March 2019.
This new all-time high smashed the previous record by 25% and has paved the way for even more impressive returns throughout 2021 as more gaming venues open, additional states approve online gambling and sports bettors eagerly await the commencement of the 2021 NFL season.
State by State Revenue Review
It is heartening to see that despite the challenges faced by many land-based gambling communities and the reality of limited legal online gambling access gaming income has been positive in 2021.
The chart below shows the percentile increase and decrease of the Q1 2021 results compared to the 2019 and 2020 for the same region:
As you can see nearly 60% of the states where gambling is legal to have seen positive revenue figures this year compared to the previous two years. While there are several states who have seen gambling revenues add substantially to their coffers this year the two shining examples of the potential of introducing regulated online gambling to your land-based framework are Pennsylvania which raked in $1 billion and New Jersey, a close second with $994 million.
Recent reports have confirmed that Nevada is investigating how to launch online gambling products for their land-based casino licence holders. Given they generated over $2 billion in GGR this quarter legal online gambling could triple or quadruple their current revenues.
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