PA Gaming Hits $590 Million Despite 100,000 Unregulated Machines Hiding in Plain Sight

Pennsylvania’s enormous gaming market had another great month in January as iGaming continued to lead the pack. Total revenue was $590 million from legal, licensed games in the state, not including nearly a 100 thousand so-called skill games sprinkled in gas stations and bars across the Keystone state, which meant total tax revenue for just this month was $250 million.

iGaming contributed 42% or $246 million of that total, with online slots doing the heavy lifting with $194 million while online table games revenue was $52 million. Those online slots were up 22% from last January while tables saw a much slower growth trajectory of only 6%.

Sports wagering kicked in another $71 million with the vast majority of that coming from online wagering, which was 12% of the pie. But that number was up 38% from January 2025, when the industry was battling player-friendly outcomes in NFL playoff games.

Both retail slots and tables were essentially flat year over year. Slots grew 0.6% to $189 million, while retail tables ticked up nearly 3% to $52 million.  Parx Casino in Philadelphia led the pack with a combined $47 million in land-based revenue while Wind Creek Bethlehem brought in $42 million. The Casino at Nemacolin set on 2200 acres 90 minutes south of Pittsburgh which often has room rates north of $1,000 had slot and table games revenue of a little less than $1.9 million to bring up the rear. 

Pennsylvania reports iGaming a little differently than others, preferring to list revenue by the operator instead of by the skin. For instance Hollywood Casino at Penn National Race Course had over $96 million in iGaming revenue in January, but they partner with not only DraftKings, but BetMGM and Fanatics and then all three skins are reported together. 

They are kind enough to break out slots and table games though, so we know that $72 million came from online slots, while table games chipped in $23 million, and online poker was only about $700,000. 

Each land based casino can have as many as  three such skins as is the case with Penn, but not all do. Valley Forge, owned by Boyd Gaming, has only FanDuel and Boyd’s attempt at an online casino named Stardust. They still managed to take the number two spot however with more than $67 million, split  between $50 million from slots and $16 million in table games.

Rivers Casino Philadelphia rounds out the top three with $40 million in total online casino revenue, though much more slot heavy with $34 million on the online spinners and only $5 million from table games. That’s $203 million, or about 80% of the total,  combined in just the top three online operators.  Total taxes received in Harrisburg just from online play was $114 million.

Several casinos have removed slots from land-based properties, with total counts down from around 26,000 in 2019 to about 24,000 today and employment dropping from 15,400 to 11,200 - as discussed in this impact of gaming tax reform on casino jobs.

Governor Shapiro has once again called for the games to be regulated and taxed in 2026, and the state believes that total tax revenue of between $300 and $500 million is possible, highlighting the scope of the problem. The Pennsylvania Supreme Court is also mulling a legal challenge over the legality of skill game machines and will likely hand down a ruling this spring.

Resolving the long‑running dispute over these machines would likely see both online and retail, land‑based gaming soar, as operators of these machines would be forced to compete on a more level playing field, with the PA lottery estimating that its estimated monthly revenue losses of up to $2,200 per machine are tied to these grey‑market devices.

This month's revenue numbers tell a compelling story of a mature, well-regulated market firing on all cylinders. But the bigger story may be what happens next. With almost half a billion more dollars in potential gaming revenue tucked away in the dark corners of restaurants, bars and  dusty gas station counters, the Keystone State may not even have hit its stride yet.