Land-based US casinos clock record revenue for 2018

2018 was a very good year if you happened to own a land-based casino in the United States. That’s the word from the the American Gaming Association’s (AGA) State of the States 2019: The AGA Survey of the Commercial Casino Industry.
According to the report, America’s casinos clocked in a record-breaking $41.7 billion in revenue for the year. That’s up a whopping 3.5 percent over the 2017 numbers. It’s also the fourth consecutive year of growth for the industry, which outpaced the national economic growth rate for the year.
Of course the AGA isn’t the place to go if you want to talk about the social costs of gambling, which are difficult to measure accurately and usually come from extremely biased sources. The AGA is, however, the people to talk to when you want to learn that America’s 465 casinos put more than $9 billion into the economy in the form of revenue raised for state and local governments.
While the report is loaded with positive facts about the casino industry, it did present one very small bit of bad news for the business. According to the AGA, two states actually reported decreased casino revenue for the year. Those states were Illinois, with a decrease of 2.4 percent and West Virginia with a decline of .1 percent.
AGA President and CEO Bill Miller crowed about the industry’s successful year saying, “Year after year, the commercial casino industry has reaffirmed its role as an economic powerhouse in the United States. More people than ever are experiencing the economic and social benefits of gaming in their communities, due in part to the expansion of legal sports betting across the country,” he said in a press release promoting the report.
It will be interesting to see if 2019, and the increased number of states offering regulated sports betting, boosts the casino business’ numbers even higher.