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Pennsylvania Gaming Dashboard – January 2021

Insight | Data

For the fifth consecutive month Pennsylvania’s igaming market hit a new high in December, with the final month of last year’s 15.2% revenue rise the largest monthly jump of the record-breaking streak.

iGaming Business and Ficom Leisure are delighted to present the Pennsylvania iGaming Dashboard, providing a monthly breakdown of the latest figures from the Keystone State’s regulated gambling market.

The data is updated monthly following the official release of figures from the Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board. 

Online casino GGR climbed to $68.9m in December, up from $59.8m the previous month. The channel likely benefited from the pandemic-related restrictions in force in the state during the month, with land-based casino revenues plummeting during the month.

It was online slots that contributed most to the rise, with GGR hitting a record high of $46.2m during December, up 17.3% on November’s $39.4m and more than eight times higher than the $5.6m achieved in the same month of 2019.

But online table games and poker also rose in December, with month-on-month increases of 10.6% and 12.5%, respectively.

After steady rises in its market share over the past several months, DraftKings-partnered Penn National Gaming finally overtook Rivers Casino to become the market leader in online casino revenues in December.

With 34.1% of the market, it was significantly ahead of Rivers at 28.1%, while Valley Forge took third place with 16.2%.

The online sports betting market also hit a new high in December, with online GGR of $32.9m up 5.4% from November’s $31.2m. The December total was almost four times that of the same month in 2019.

However, the rise in the online channel was not enough to make up for the big drop in retail sports betting and overall the sports betting market fell back in December after two straight months of breaking records in October and November.

As casinos shut their doors, revenue from land-based sports betting fell to just $1.2m in December, the lowest monthly total since July and an 80.6% fall from November’s $6.2m.

There was something of a shakeup in the market shares of the state’s sportsbooks during the month, with Hollywood Casino seemingly coming out of nowhere to become the market leader with a 40.9% share on a GGR basis.

This was up from 10.1% in November and 9.2% in October. Hollywood’s strong performance pushed former longstanding market leader FanDuel, which is partnered with Valley Forge Casino, into second place with a 21.4% share, down from 41.3% in November.

DFS rival DraftKings, which has a partnership with Meadows, came in third with 15.9%.

Ficom Leisure also provides monthly figures on New Jersey in the New Jersey iGaming Dashboard, Indiana in the Indiana iGaming Dashboard, and Iowa in the Iowa Gaming Dashboard

It also provides quarterly figures, available via iGamingBusiness.com, on the Spanish online market in the Spain iGaming Dashboard, on the Italian market in the Italy iGaming Dashboard, and on the Portuguese market in the Portugal iGaming Dashboard.

A European corporate advisory firm, Ficom Leisure is a specialist in all segments of the betting and gaming sector.