Pennsylvania Casinos Up 2.4% To $249.5m In October

The Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board has released its October gambling figures for the state’s 12 casinos, revealing a 2.4% increase in revenue to $249.5 million, compared to $243.7 million for the same month last year.
Breaking the figures down further, table games play during October saw revenue rise by 9.5% to $60.6 million, while slot machines were largely static reporting a 0.31% improvement in revenue to $189 million from $188.4 million in October 2012.
Pennsylvania opened its first slot machine operation in 2006, followed by table games in 2010. With the average growth period in the casino industry being around three years, slot machine revenues have already began leveling off, although table games are still continuing to prove a growth area for the state’s gambling industry. The latest monthly figures for October also seem to tally with the prediction of Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board spokesman Richard McGarvey, who recently commented:
“For a number of years we were having those big gains and I always told people not to expect them year after year, the market will mature, you’ll stop adding facilities. I think it’s a good reflection of it this year, this is the first year we didn’t open anything new.”
Illustrating the point, in October six out of Pennsylvania’s eleven casinos that were open in October last year, reported a fall in their slot revenues, including Presque Isle Downs and Casino in Erie, where slots revenues fell by 7% to $10.2 million, and The Meadows Racetrack and Casino, which shed 10% of its slots revenues compared to October last year.
Pennsylvania may have overtaken Atlantic City to become the USA’s second-largest gambling resort behind Las Vegas, but in recent times The Keystone State’s gaming industry has been facing increasing competition from neighbouring states, including Maryland, New York, Ohio and Delaware.