Pennsylvania cashes in on gambling expansion

Gambling has injected more than $385 million into Pennsylvania state coffers in the first year since a law was passed to expand gambling in the state, surpassing state budget estimates.

Upfront licensing fees for casinos, online casinos, and sportsbooks; mini-casino auction profits; and tax revenue from lottery expansion and daily fantasy sports have combined to net Pennsylvania more than $1 million a day since late 2017, according to a recent analysis by the online publication PlayPennsylvania.com.

“The most notable aspect of the significant revenue that has been generated is that this is almost completely from fees, rather than tax revenue gained from gamblers,” said Jessica Welman, analyst for PlayPennsylvania.com. “Clearly there is enough interest in Pennsylvania’s enormous market so far to generate the fees.”

The revenue estimates were tabulated by PlayPennsylvania.com using a combination of official statistics and estimates based on iLottery, keno and virtual sports sales numbers. A detailed accounting of the revenue generated so far can be found at playpennsylvania.com/revenue.

Using return-to-player rates of the games, PlayPennsylvania estimates that the state has collected more than $23 million in revenue from online lotto games ($19.6 million), keno ($3.6 million) and virtual sports ($87,000) through October.

Other sources of revenue so far from the law include:

Mini-casino auction profits, $128 million.
Interactive gaming petitions, $94 million.
Casino licensing, $78 million.
Sports betting petitions, $60 million.
Daily fantasy sports tax revenue, $1.4 million.

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