Pennsylvania’s 17 online casinos are on pace to win more than $1 billion collectively from digital-oriented gamblers this year, but it’s hard to tell which sites are getting the biggest share of action.
Unlike mobile sports betting, for which the Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board’s monthly revenue reports identify each of the 13 operators, multiple iCasinos can be lumped together in the revenue reported for a single licensee. That’s because there is no limit on how many online casinos can operate under the license held by one of the state’s brick-and-mortar casino operators.
The companies with land-based casinos are free to make whatever financial arrangements they choose with online gaming companies to provide an outlet for the latter to operate in Pennsylvania. Such iGaming sites must be tethered to an existing brick-and-mortar casino operator rather than being able to launch on their own in Pennsylvania. A land-based casino may also have its own online operation, but it can enter partnerships with specialists in the digital gaming world that enable it to come out ahead financially even by increasing the online competition.
So when Penn National Gaming’s Hollywood Casino showed up in the June report as the state’s top revenue producer with $34.9 million earned from online slots, table games, and poker during the month, it didn’t mean the single, long-running Hollywood Casino online site itself garnered all that activity and all those dollars.