Casino News: PA Gambling Earning Record, Illinois Brings In $1BN & More

With the first month of the 2022 calendar coming to an end, we’re getting a lot of 2021 revenue reports back from the various areas of the United States. For many, it has been a landmark year in terms of the revenues they’ve reeled in.

Pennsylvania Sets Record in Gambling Earnings

The state of Pennsylvania just had a phenomenal year in terms of total gambling revenue. The Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board has reported gains in every legalized gaming sector throughout the state in 2021. They tallied up the revenue from table games, sports betting, iGaming, slot machines, and a few other sources to the sum of $4,734,552,201. That was a ridiculously larger amount than the $2,653,511,029 that they reported back in 2020. It’s pretty clear that during the pandemic, when there wasn’t a lot to do, people still had a craving to gamble.

The combined revenue for this record-breaking year was $2,287,529,465, nearly double from their $1,355,924,785 total that they got in 2020.

Not only did every sector in the state see increases, but each source of revenue improved over the past year as well. Of course, having legalized sports betting in the mix helped quite a bit.

While these numbers are always exciting, keep in mind that a lot of these sectors are new, so they are going to be setting new high watermarks year over year as people are exposed to a new, legal pastime.

Illinois Casinos Bring in $1.1 Billion During 2021

It hasn’t taken long for casinos in Illinois to bounce back from a disappointing 2020 year in terms of gambling revenue. The Illinois Gaming Control Board counted up the totals for 2021 and reported that they won $1.1 billion from bettors. For the official numbers, $296,763,261 of that money was brought in from their table games with the remaining money coming from machines. That’s great news for the state as much of this money will be reinvested in roads, schools and public programs.

The top earning casino in the state was the Grand Victoria Casino as the property topped the competition with $143,262,740 total earnings in 2021. They led the way to a massive $600 million increase in casino revenue from 2020 to 2021.

On top of all of this, the Chicagoland market fell down to fourth best in the United States. They were jumped by the Baltimore-Washington DC market, a market that is likely to remain ahead of Chicagoland for the foreseeable future as Maryland continues to report record breaking revenue numbers. However, if Illinois can continue to grow it’s sports betting market, it might be able to surpass some of its neighbors.

Michigan Online Gambling Nets $1.4 Billion in 2021

Michigan had their online gambling sites up and running for the first time in 2021 and they’re pretty happy about it. Despite it being a brand-new market, the payoff was pretty substantial for Michigan as they brought in approximately $1.4 billion from their online casinos and sportsbooks combined. The online sportsbooks were the lesser of the two, bringing in $292 million with the online casino generating the remaining $1.1 billion. However, it was also said that the final total was a little bit lower than reported due to free promotional bets getting factored in.

The sports gambling handle in total for all of 2021 had jumped up to a whopping $3.7 billion. The state of Michigan themselves hauled in $201.67 million from taxes and fees associated with these casinos along with an additional $7.27 million from online fees.

As for the three casino operators in Detroit, they paid the city $55.28 million in those same taxes and fees. That was along with a $4.07 million fee for sports betting taxes. Finally, the tribal operators were able to get in on the action and reported making $22.39 million. That money was made in payments to governing bodies according to the report.