New Sportsbook Launches and Online Casino Records Abound In Pennsylvania

New Sportsbook Launches and Online Casino Records Abound In Pennsylvania

The latest news reports by Play Pennsylvania indicate that the state’s online gaming and gambling industry is off to a great in 2022. The Keystone state’s sportsbooks and online casinos have set new gaming records even as retail revenue grew substantially!

Jan’s Five Weekends of Football help break the records

New monthly wagering records were set in the state, as January brought in five weekends of football. Both online and retail sportsbooks were part of the record-breaking revenues. The state’s online casinos made all-new monthly revenue records.

Revenue earned by the sportsbooks in wagering was $793.7m, posting an all-new 29.0% year-over-year growth. In January 2021, wagering revenue was $615.3m. Besides, January revenue grew by 5.8% compared to December’s earnings of $750.4m. This was a considerable increase over the previous wager earnings high of $776.3m reported in October 2021.

Pennsylvania’s consistent growth

PlayUSA.com Network’s analyst Dustin Gouker states,

“Pennsylvania’s sports betting growth has lagged behind similarly-sized states like Illinois, but the growth has remained consistent.”  

Analysts have found that the hiatus years during the pandemic have led to more people signing-up on digital betting platforms and online casino gaming. The expectation is that this year too, the online betting platforms will see a similar number of participants as the past two years.

Sportsbooks gross revenue rises

Sportsbooks grossed revenue of $53.4 million over $793 million handles in January. This increased 8.3% year-on-year over the January 2021 revenue of $49.3m. It also increased 7.9% over December 2021 revenue of $45.3m.

Analysts believe NFL’s picking an additional week of regular-season games contributed to the sportsbook upping the monthly revenue. In the words of Katie Kohler at PlayPennsylvania.com:

The NFL did sportsbooks a big favor this year by adding…five full weekends of NFL games for the first time in January, a full slate of NBA action, and college football’s national championship, anything less than a wagering record would have been a disappointment.”

Other reasons for January’s superb revenue run, according to Kohler, are

online sportsbooks, especially with apps like DraftKings, BetMGM, and Barstool that have a strong foothold in both. In essence, online casino gaming is the tide that lifts all boats.”

About sherlock

Sherlock Gomes loves to write and express his views on anything related to Gaming, Gambling, & Casino. He has been covering Gaming for more than two years now.