Legal online poker in Pennsylvania makes $2.5 million in 1st full month

Pennsylvania’s first legal real-money poker website made $2.5 million in December, according to the latest figures from the Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board.

PokerStars PA launched in November. It’s a partnership between Mount Airy Casino Resort in the Poconos and PokerStars, the world’s largest online poker company.

Online poker accounted for less than 1% of state gambling revenue in December. However, it is just one of several new options for Pennsylvanians who want to gamble without making a trip to the casino.

Online gambling — including internet slots, table games, poker, sports betting and fantasy sports — made about $22.4 million in December, less than 8% of total state gambling revenue, according to figures the gaming control board released Thursday.

The vast majority of gambling money is still made in traditional casinos, particularly at slot machines, which raked in $187.5 million last month.

Pennsylvania legalized online gambling in October 2017, but implementation has been slow. Legal sports betting followed the next year.

“With online casinos, I think we’ve just hit the tip of the iceberg. It’s been kind of a slow rollout,” said Dustin Gouker, an analyst with industry news site PlayPennsylvania.com.

He predicted the rapid growth of the online gambling industry in 2020.

In 2019, gamblers spent more than $3.4 billion in Pennsylvania. That’s a 4.5% increase over the previous year, driven largely by the rise in online gambling, according to data from the gaming control board.

Gouker said that online gambling appeals to a wider market than casino gambling.

“These are often customers that you’d not ordinarily get otherwise,” he said.

Online sportsbooks have dominated the state’s sports betting industry, bringing in $8.4 million in December compared to $3 million for sportsbooks located in casinos.

The question for online poker is whether Pennsylvania can grow and sustain interest, according to Gouker. When legal online poker launched in New Jersey in 2013 interest was initially high but cooled over time, he said. It peaked in January 2014, with $3.4 million in monthly revenue.

“(Pennsylvania) obviously has been a very hot start, there’s a lot of revenue, a lot of people playing … but we have no idea what it will be like in the long term,” Gouker said.

PokerStars PA has had an average of about 400 concurrent players over the last week, according to industry tracking site PokerScout.com. That’s four times PokerStars NJ’s player count over the same time period. Both are dwarfed by the main PokerStars site, with its average of 7,200 concurrent players, but most U.S. residents can’t legally access that site. Players on the Pennsylvania site can only play with other players in the state.