The US gaming industry has enjoyed its best-ever July to date as revenue nearly hit $5.4bn, according to data published by the American Gaming Association.
According to the AGA’s Commercial Gaming Tracker, the US industry made $5.39bn in revenue through the month of July, marking an increase of 5.9% year-over-year.
Despite the increase in revenue, the growth has decelerated each month this year as the US industry stabilizes post-pandemic and the comparisons normalize as time goes on. The AGA anticipates that this will continue going forward.
Traditional land-based casino gaming generated a record amount of revenue during July, reaching $4.4bn in GGR thanks to “seasonal travel trends and the addition of several new physical casino properties”.
Breaking this down by vertical, slots generated $3.13bn, up 3.2% YoY, while table game GGR improved by 1.7% YoY to $976.3m.
Through July, combined revenue from casino slot machines and table games totaled $28.97bn, up 3.6% YoY, with 21 out of 26 commercial gaming states with land-based casinos posting YoY revenue growth – Florida, Iowa, Mississippi, Indiana and Louisiana were the only states to see declines.
Meanwhile, the fastest growth across the board was seen in the sports betting vertical, where revenue hit $497.7m durting July, marking an increase 28.4% YoY. This was attributed to the opening of new markets during this time, including Ohio, Massachusetts and the online launch in Maryland last November.
For the year-to-date, sports betting revenue has hit $5.46bn through the seven months so far, marking 63.1% YoY, with the strong impact of large new markets.
On the online casino side of things, revenue has hit $481.5m, marking growth of 22.7% YoY, fueled by “by the ongoing expansion and acceleration of online gaming”. It also marked the strongest-ever July for igaming operations in the US.
However, the igaming revenue lags 9.9% behind the record figures set in March 2023, and there has been four consecutive months of decline in the igaming sector. For the year-to-date, online casino revenue reached $3.45bn, an increase of 22.6% YoY.