The US gambling industry had an extremely successful year in 2022.
According to a new report issued by the California-based research firm Eilers & Krejcik Gaming, local gamblers have lost an estimated amount of $157 billion. It also found that casinos and their services had the largest share of the country’s gambling market and accounted for 63% of the overall revenue. Lotteries were second, with a 23% distribution of the total revenue. The remaining 14% of the US gambling market’s revenue was shared by sports betting, distributed gambling and routine operations, racing, and charity.
The online vertical, which includes online casino, sports betting, poker, digital lotteries, and pari-mutuel advance-deposit wagering, posted an annual growth. In 2021, it represented 7% of the overall gambling revenue, with the percentage increasing to 9% of the total gambling revenue in 2022.
In February 2022, the premier national trade group for the US casino industry – the American Gaming Association (AGA) – revealed that a new revenue record was set by the country’s commercial gambling sector in 2022, with the industry managed to generate $60.4 billion. The result marks the second straight year when the gambling industry has managed to break its annual revenue record, surpassing the $53-billion revenue registered in 2021.
Reportedly, the record-breaking figures were driven by all-time high quarterly revenue worth almost $15.9 billion in the fourth quarter of 2022, with both online gambling and sports betting services being among the major contributing factors to the industry growth. Traditional gaming also increased by 1.7% year-on-year.
Bill Miller, CEO and President of the American Gaming Association, explained that the industry’s ability to exceed expectations could be considered responsible for the successful performance of the market. He further noted that gaming has long been among the favorite entertainment options for American adults, with the sector benefiting communities, and taking market share from the illegal and unregulated black gambling market.
Online Gambling Industry in the US Also on the Rise
The AGA revealed that, for the time being, the US gambling sector is still working to diversify its offerings, with brick-and-mortar gambling options accounting for 80.5% of overall gambling revenue, and the online gambling sector contributing a further 19.5% to the total revenue of the market.
There have been some significant changes in the legal gambling landscape of the country since May 2018, when the US Supreme Court finally eliminated the federal ban on sports betting and made the new form of gambling legal. Since then, more than 30 states across the country have already legalized wagering on sports events.
For the time being, six US states allow online gambling services featuring interactive table games and slot machines, with the online gambling market expected to grow further. Despite the expansion of the digital sector, traditional brick-and-mortar casinos remained the dominant force in the sector, with commercial and tribal casinos accounting for 58% of the overall gross gaming revenue (GGR), or approximately $91 billion.
The overall gross gaming revenue for US casinos, including revenue generated by online gambling and sports betting operations linked to brick-and-mortar casinos through third-party partnership agreements, was estimated at almost 63% of the sector’s net winnings in 2022, or $98 billion. Although local players were able to choose from a large variety of new legal gaming options, it seems that good old casino gambling remains the most popular form of gambling and accounts for the lion’s share of the total revenue of the industry.
