May Commercial Gaming Revenue

The U.S. commercial gaming industry’s record-setting pace continued into May as gaming revenue grew nearly 28 percent from the same month in 2019. Despite lingering COVID-19 restrictions, the commercial casino industry set an all-time gaming revenue record in May with combined revenue from traditional casino gaming, sports betting, and iGaming reaching $4.68 billion. This represents a nearly four percent increase from the previous monthly record in March 2021. Of note, U.S. slot and table game verticals also set new monthly records.

May’s revenue growth was helped by fewer pandemic-related operating restrictions: 18 of the 25 states with commercial gaming opened to full occupancy, up from 10 in April. Nevertheless, about 60 percent of America’s 463 commercial casino properties were limited to between 25 and 75 percent of full occupancy at the end of May, with lingering restrictions on game capacity and other amenities.

In May, revenue from traditional gaming exceeded pre-pandemic levels for a second consecutive month and reached $4.09 billion—an all-time monthly record. New monthly records were also set for both casino slot machine revenue ($2.96B) and table game revenue ($795.6M).

Although consumer spending-per-visit declined in May across the four states that track it (Illinois, Iowa, Louisiana, and Missouri), it remains well above pre-pandemic levels. In those states, casino admissions were down between seven and 24 percent from May 2019, but traditional casino gaming revenue per admission remained between 19 and 37 percent above pre-pandemic levels.

With total gaming revenue of $20.21 billion over the first five months of this year, 2021 gaming revenue is tracking more than 13 percent ahead of 2019, which was itself a record year. At the state level, sixteen out of 25 commercial gaming states are so far exceeding 2019 gaming revenue levels.

Of the 25 commercial gaming states that were operational two years ago, only three—Kansas, Maine, and Rhode Island—saw total May gaming revenue below 2019 totals.

Sports betting activity was flat from April, but compared to 2019, May sports betting handle of $3.71 billion represented more than 400 percent growth. Nationwide, sports betting generated $271.9 million in revenue, up more than 700 percent from May 2019.

iGaming in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Delaware, West Virginia and Michigan reached $310.5 million, within a million dollars of the all-time high ($311.3M) set just in March 2021.

Combined revenue from sports betting and iGaming accounted for more than 12.5 percent of all U.S. commercial gaming revenue in May, down slightly from 13.1 percent in March, but well above pre-pandemic levels.