HARRISBURG, PA: Even with strong revenue increases from newer gambling initiatives such as sports wagering and iGaming, closures of retail gaming due to the Covid-19 pandemic led to 22.24% drop in gaming revenues in 2020, according to the Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board.
Casino closure days totaled 1,473 in 2020, or 33% of the number of days the 13 casinos would have been operating in a normal year. Additionally, VGT establishments were shut down for a similar percentage of days due to Covid-19 safety measures.
For the year, the combined revenue of slot machine, table games, sports wagering, iGaming, video gaming terminals (VGTs) and fantasy contests totaled $2,653,511,029 compared to $3,412,594,239 in 2019.
At the same time, the combined revenue of the four other forms of gaming established under the Gaming Expansion Act of 2017 and regulated by the Gaming Control Board took in $793,276,978, an increase of 443.66% over revenue of $145,914,380 achieved for those games in 2019.