A new study announced Thursday by economic experts at Analysis Group says legalized iGaming in New York, Illinois, Louisiana, Maryland, and Virginia, could provide a combined total of over $42 billion in revenue between 2025 and 2029 over the five jurisdictions.
The study comes at a time when states are wrapping up their legislative sessions for 2024 after a few iGaming bills failed to move forward. Maine, Maryland, and New York are some of the states that made attempts recently to pass iGaming bills with no success.
The Analysis Group study states iGaming (also known as Internet gaming, or online casinos) has the potential to generate revenues of $18 billion for New York, $9.2 billion for Illinois, $3.9 billion for Louisiana, $5.5 billion for Maryland, and $5.4 billion for Virginia between 2025 and 2029.
The study’s authors based their projections on the economic impact of iGaming in six states where it is already legal – New Jersey, Delaware, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Michigan, and Connecticut. In total, the six states generated approximately $5.6 billion in gross gaming revenues in 2023, compared to $11.5 billion from land-based casino revenues. On average, iGaming represents approximately 32.8% of the market within these six states.
Rhode Island is the newest member of iGaming states since launching online casinos just last month. The Ocean State is not mentioned in the study.
Over 33 states, including the District of Columbia, have launched some form of sports betting, online and retail locations. In 2022, sports betting generated $6.4 billion in revenues, according to data collected from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas.
A similar study performed last year centered on Maryland shows iGaming could generate $533.4 million in gross revenue for the state from online gambling starting in 2026. As the industry matures, $533.4 million in 2026 from iGaming would grow to more than $900 million in gross revenue (or “casino win”) in 2029, according to the 2023 study performed by The Innovation Group. That study also based the economic impact of iGaming in six states where it is already legal (NJ, PA, WV, MI, and CT).
“Prior to the legalization of iGaming in the six states studied, brick-and-mortar casino revenues had been stagnant or in decline,” the report says.
During committee meetings examining Maryland’s proposed iGaming bill lawmakers stated that revenue from their five brick-and-mortar casinos has been on a decline.
“However, with the legalization of iGaming, total market revenues increased by 46%, and the growth rate of land-based casino revenues increased by an average of 1.9 percentage points per year,” the study says.
One goal of legalizing online casino gaming in more U.S. states is to provide consumers with an alternative to offshore or illegal Internet sites.
“In fact, more survey respondents reported having increased their land-based casino visitation frequency than reported having decreased it, indicating that iGaming is associated with increased demand for land-based gaming options,” the study states.
The study, The Potential Economic Impact of Legalizing iGaming on Casino Revenues in Five States, was funded by the Sports Betting Alliance.
