Pa Casino Revenues Down 1.44% To $3.07bn In 2014

The good news is that Pennsylvania’s casino industry has topped the $3 billion mark for the fourth year in a row. The disappointing news, however, is that the $3.07bn generated in 2014 was actually 1.44% lower than the $3.11 billion reported for the previous year. Nevertheless, Pennsylvania’s casino market still remains the USA’s second biggest gambling market behind Nevada, and in 2014 the state collected a whopping $1.34 billion in tax revenues, which subsequently went towards property tax relief, local communities, and economic development projects.
Pennsylvania first embraced casino gambling with the introduction of slot machine gambling in 2006, followed by the addition of table games in 2010. Six years of growth then ensued, reaching a peak of $3.15 billion in 2012, before falling back 1.41% (-$44.4m) in 2013, and now 1.44% (-$44.8m) in 2014.
Interestingly, much of the declines are a result of falling slots revenues, which peaked at $2.47 billion in 2012, before dropping off to the $2.31 billion reported for last year. In fact, with $750 million in revenues table games were nearly 3% higher than 2013, while the $2.3 billion from slot machines represented a 2.7% decline overall. Much of the cause for Pennsylvania’s shrinking revenues has been blamed on increased competition from neighboring states, such as Ohio and Maryland, and elaborating further on that point, Pa Gaming Control Board spokesman Dough Harbach, said:
“Increased competition from surrounding states, which are also offering conveniently located casinos to its highest populations centers such as in Pennsylvania, continues to be the biggest impact to growth here.”
Nevertheless, Pennsylvania still fared significantly better than nearby New Jersey, which last year saw its casino revenues shrink to just $2.74 billion, down from a 2006 peak of $5.2 billion. In NJ, last year was also blighted by four of the state’s 12 casinos shutting their operations, leading to more than 8,000 people losing their jobs.