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US casino gambling is at its highest levels in history, both online and in brick-and-mortar establishments. Data released this week by the American Gaming Association (AGA) shows a 7.5% year-over year increase in total commercial gaming revenue. Online casinos and sports betting provided most of that. Online casino revenue was up 28.7% for the full year and 33.1% in Q4.
Meanwhile, gaming revenue at physical casinos set a new single-year record according to the AGA. Full-year growth for physical casinos was only 0.8%, but things were picking up steam in Q4 with 2.3% growth. Despite that modest growth, the trend suggests that concerns over iGaming cannibalization of brick-and-mortar casinos are overblown.
AGA Revenue Report Full of New Records
The latest update in the AGA’s commercial revenue tracker is full of highlights for non-tribal gaming in the US. Among those are new annual and quarterly records for both in-person and online casino gaming.
For land-based gaming, 2024 produced almost $49.8 billion in revenue and the fourth quarter contributed nearly $12.86 billion of that total. Those figures represent single-year and fourth-quarter records but marginally so.
The iGaming sector’s comparatively larger growth rates wrought almost $2.4 billion in Q4 revenue and over $8.4 billion in revenue for the entire year of 2024. Those are single-quarter and single-year records for the segment.
Opponents of iGaming legalization could point to that relatively lower growth rate for land-based gaming and the fact that iGaming accounted for a record 30% of the whole in terms of commercial gaming revenue for 2024 as proof of cannibalization. Other data show how that is a self-serving and shallow observation, however.
Online casino states saw larger increases in 2024
The AGA’s accounting breaks down non-tribal revenue totals for 2024 by jurisdiction, showing comparisons to both Q4 2023 and full year 2023. The seven legal iGaming states plus Nevada experienced some of the largest increases in both observations.
| State | Q4 2024 Total | Q4 2024 Change | Full Year 2024 Total | Full Year 2024 Increase |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Connecticut | $213.5 million | 23.1% | $761.3 million | 31.3% |
| Delaware | $136.88 million | 5.4% | $544.3 million | 8.3% |
| Michigan | $1.1 billion | 20.1% | 4.2 billion | 17.1% |
| New Jersey | $1.6 billion | 6.1% | $6.3 billion | 9.8% |
| Nevada | $4 billion | -1.4% | $15.6 billion | 0.5% |
| Pennsylvania | $1.8 billion | 11.5% | $6.8 billion | 10.3% |
| Rhode Island | $179.7 million | 4% | $711.1 million | 0.5% |
| West Virginia | $230.6 million | 14.9% | $874.8 million | 9.1% |
Nevada’s numbers are a good example of the impact of the scale of iGaming. In Nevada, online casino play is technically legal but so far, licensees have only implemented online poker platforms to the exclusion of full products with digital table games, live dealer games, and online slots.
With a comparable population and far less of an impact from tourism, Connecticut saw its commercial gaming revenue increase by an exponentially larger percentage. If you account for the millions of tourists that Nevada sees each year, the same comparisons hold true for states with larger populations like Michigan and New Jersey.
While the point is that regulated and robust iGaming contributed a lot of that growth, the AGA says that in-person play still accounted for 70% of the total commercial revenue for 2024. Assuming that these states don’t represent a major deviation from that standard, if online casinos were producing significant cannibalization in the seven full iGaming states, it’s fair to expect their growth rates to be far smaller.
Related data further weaken any argument that iGaming is destroying physical casinos’ bottom lines.
MGM Resorts as a case study
While Q4 and full year 2024 earnings reports for many companies engaged in brick-and-mortar casino operations like Bally’s, Caesars Entertainment, and Rush Street Gaming are still pending release, one major company in the US has shared its numbers. Earnings from MGM Resorts demonstrate that iGaming cannibalization is minimal if at all present.
MGM operates the Borgata in Atlantic City, New Jersey and the MGM Grand in Detroit, Michigan. While its latest earnings statement does not break down revenues by property specifically, it does separate them out between Las Vegas Strip and “Regional Operations.”
The statement says that revenue from regional operations “was flat compared to the prior year” and also shows a 6% revenue increase in the same division for Q4 2024 compared to Q4 2023. MGM Resorts overall posted a marginal revenue gain in Q4 2024 compared to the same quarter in 2023 but an increase of about 8% for the full year over 2023.
While that is in keeping with the AGA’s accounting of small increases for land-based casino revenue, further reports from other companies like MGM Resorts will show to what degree MGM might be an outlier, if at all.
The continually growing body of evidence shows that there is room in the US gambling industry for both in-person and online casino play and that significant growth comes from iGaming. The AGA’s latest revenue update is part of that growth of evidence.
