America’s commercial casinos are off to the best ever two-month start in history, showing a solid recovery during the third year of the COVID-19 pandemic, according to ABC News.
The American Gaming Association, which is the gambling industry’s national trade association, released data this week that showed revenue from in-person casino games, sports betting, and internet gambling/betting/casinos raked in around $8.92 billion during the months of January and February of 2022.
Those numbers represent a 19% increase from the prior record which was set during the start of 2020.
At the head of the pack were in-person slot machine games and table games, which showed revenue of $7.18 billion in the first two months of 2022, showing a slight drop from $7.11 billion during the same period in 2020.
This data does not include tribal-run casinos, but they are also seeing the same kind of increases.
“This record start to the year demonstrates the sustained momentum of our industry’s recovery into 2022,” Bill Miller, the American Gaming Association’s president and CEO said, per the report. “While it remains to be seen if we’ll match last year’s all-time high, it’s clear that Americans are continuing to make gaming a first-choice entertainment option.”
Five states are behind their revenue pace from the start of 2020, in terms of gambling/betting revenue: Kansas (-11.7%), Louisiana (-2.3%), New Mexico (-6.4%), Oklahoma (-5.2%) and Rhode Island (-13.3%).