The Pennsylvania gambling scene recently recorded a major coup. According to data from the Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board, the revenue for the 2024 2025 financial year was $6.4 billion. This represented a major growth across many verticals, including slots and iGaming.
This comes as no surprise, given that online gambling has been having quite a moment. While in-person land-based casinos were the only option only a few years ago, the internet has democratized access. Thanks to the combination of convenience and greater access to a wider variety of games, consumers have embraced this wholeheartedly. And this isn't even limited to Pennsylvania. Many states in the U.S, like North Carolina, have seen a massive increase in online gambling interest. As an article by gambling expert Alex Hoffmann suggests, many more people are looking for where to gamble online in North Carolina.
In Pennsylvania, iGaming saw an increase of 27% in revenue. It made up a significant chunk of the total revenue for the fiscal year, bringing in $2.47 billion in total.
Hopefully, North Carolina will see the same sort of benefits Pennsylvania is reporting. According to the control board, not only has gambling revenue itself gone up, but so has the tax generated from it. For the same fiscal year, the total tax revenue was $2.79 billion, which is an increase from the $2.54 billion that was generated the year before.
But even with this, physical gambling has not exactly been left in the dust. For the same period, retail slot machines generated $2.44 billion, indicating that demand remains strong. Table games, however, faced a bit of a slump. As per the same data, its revenue was down by 3.04%, to $928.9 million.
This has led many to speculate regarding why slot machines are seeing a revenue increase while table games have seen a decrease. This could be credited to the ease of using slot machines, as they have less of a time and skill requirement compared to table games like poker.
Nevertheless, sports betting has also been on the rise, with $487.6 million. These various stats show that while gambling as a whole is considered to be a major money maker for various states, the exact type of gambling that is popular changes from one year to the next. The internet will certainly have an impact on these trends. First is the fact that more people can simply access gambling services than ever before. The online space also creates more sub-niches of betting. Even within iGaming, you have sub-niches like crash games and so on.
As these different categories of gambling see increases and decreases in their revenue, the states still get to generate revenue. This revenue, in turn, is useful for various public projects. The Pennsylvania gambling board has stated that the gambling revenue generated is used for things such as discounts for homeowners and support for law enforcement. Hopefully, as more states follow the same path, the same benefits will be reaped.
