In the year since Pennsylvania’s comprehensive gambling expansion measure was signed into law, the state has made $385.2 million from licensed operators.
Play Pennsylvania said the amount was much larger than the $100 million assumed in the state’s most recent budget. The bulk of such collections were from license fees, with actual operations only starting or about to start for many games.
Many casinos have only just received their licenses for the games they offer, with some licenses yet to be issued by the Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board (PGCB).
The gambling expansion legislation allowed for online casinos, online lottery sales, and daily fantasy sports, as well as provided for sports betting, even prior to the Supreme Court’s giving states the decision on whether to allow wagering for sporting events.
Penn National Gaming (PNG), first to provide sports betting in the state, only opened its sportsbook last November. Each applicant has been required to pay a $10 million fee. Three more applicants were approved just late last month.
Interactive gaming was reported to have generated $94 million for Pennsylvania from nine casinos. The PGCB has provided for a total of 39 licenses to be issued, with online poker, slots, and table games each requiring one license. Applicants have paid $10 million for the three types of licenses, or $4 million for a single type.
Expanded lottery operations were calculated to bring in $23.3 million to the state, from $155.5 million in revenue over a period of six months.
From mini-casino auctions, the state collected $127.7 million from five casinos that won in a bidding process. Daily fantasy sports (DFS) so far has brought in relatively little, a total of $1.38 million to date, with licenses costing $50,000 each.
For 2017, the PGCB collected $1.33 billion from slot machine and table game gross revenues, which totaled $3.23 billion, slightly higher than in 2016. Slot machines contributed $2.34 billion, with the remaining $890.7 million coming from table games.
