AGA reports 2021 gaming revenue has surpassed all time record

Nationwide commercial gaming revenue reached a new quarterly record of $13.89 billion in Q3 2021, according the American Gaming Association’s (AGA) Commercial Gaming Revenue Tracker. The new high marks the second consecutive quarter of record U.S. commercial gaming performance.

The upswing in gaming revenue has boosted coffers in 23 of the 25 states that host brick-and-mortar casinos. Also, six states — Colorado, Iowa, Massachusetts, Michigan, Pennsylvania and South Dakota – have surpassed annual state revenue records.

For the first ten months of 2021, slot revenue is up 9.8% over the same time-period in 2019 (the AGA uses 2019 figures as comparison for most totals because of reduced capacity or closures at brick-and-mortar sites during 2020).

Revenue from table games in the first ten months of 2021 dipped slightly by -1.2%, and sports betting, due to the expansion of legal sports wagering to 32 states and the District of Columbia, increased 359.3%. And igaming, legal now in six states, experienced a whopping 644.6% increase from the first 10 months of 2019.

October’s gaming revenue was $4.75 billion. That’s the second highest revenue total ever, trailing only the $4.93 billion generated in July 2021, and sequentially a 4.8% increase over September 2021 revenue. October marks the eighth consecutive month that gaming revenue has reached $4 billion or more. Prior to this year, gaming revenue had never topped $4 billion in a single month.

Traditional gaming continues to drive the industry’s performance, with combined slot and table game setting a new quarterly revenue record of $12.05 billion. After lagging in previous quarters, table game revenue beat its quarterly revenue record by more than 10 percent in Q3 2021.

Ten out of 25 states with commercial casinos saw quarterly revenue records, including the four highest-grossing commercial gaming states in 2019: Nevada, New Jersey, New York and Pennsylvania.

On the Las Vegas Strip, gaming revenue also hit an all-time high of $2.06 billion. The record was driven, in part, by the steady return of tourism. 9.2 million people visited Las Vegas in Q3 2021, a nearly 10 percent increase over Q2 2021 and the highest quarterly visitation level since the outbreak of COVID-19.

Q3 2021 commercial gaming revenue was bolstered by record iGaming revenue of $938.6 million. Meanwhile, sports betting revenue saw a quarterly low for 2021 of $886.5 million due to a limited end-of-summer sports calendar. Combined sports betting and iGaming revenue through the first nine months of the year sits at $5.36 billion, up more than 200 percent year-over-year.