Pennsylvania Sports Betting Revenue is About to Crush Its Previous Record

As 2024 draws nearer to a close, we are getting a fuller picture of how much sports betting revenue states will earn by year’s end. And it looks like the Pennsylvania sports betting market will be among the biggest winners.

Just so we are clear: This does not mean The Keystone State will be the biggest earner. That honor will almost assuredly belong to the market for sports betting in New York. But sports betting in Pennsylvania is on track to shatter its previous record for revenue.

This is no small feat when you consider The Keystone State has offered sports wagering services since 2019. While sports betting in the United States is generally on the rise, markets with a longer tenure can experience more ebbs and flows. The results of wagers placed obviously have a lot to do with it. The more successful bets customers place, the less money sportsbooks in Pennsylvania stand to make. But veteran markets can also brush up against complacency. There is not an endless supply of sports betting clients, and current users may not be as drawn to continued participation once the novelty wears off.

Then again, in the larger scheme of things, sports betting in the USA is hardly old. The Supreme Court of the United States first overturned the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act back in 2018. Even the most vintage sports betting markets are not yet seven years into their tenures. 

To that end, record-setting Pennsylvania sports betting revenue can be considered the expectation. But even by those standards, the 2024 calendar is shaping up to be a banner year for The Keystone State.

Latest Pennsylvania Sports Betting Reports Show Continued Month Over Month Growth

Pennsylvania sports betting regulators recently released their latest monthly report. It spans the entire month of October. (November 2024 results will come out later this month, or in early January 2025. The numbers prove that Pennsylvania’s sports betting market remains on the rise. 

The Keystone State’s October handle checked in at $858.1 million, which marks a 3.5 percent increase from October 2023. It also came just $3,508 shy of breaking 2024’s highest overall monthly handle. This is the fourth time the Pennsylvania monthly handle eclipsed $800 million for the year—a market high.

Believe it or not, though, the increase in sports betting spending didn’t do much to help Pennsylvania’s sports betting revenue. As Brad Senkiw of Covers.com writes, online sportsbooks in Pennsylvania did not see the profits typically commensurate with such a high handle:

“Above-average win rates were hard to come by in an October where NFL favorites and public bettors collided across the industry for strong customer-friendly outcomes during a mid-month stretch. Pennsylvania’s monthly hold of 6.8 percent on gross revenue was in line with several other U.S. legal sports betting states, but the win rate was down from the 9.9 percent in September that produced $95.8 million in revenue on a handle that was nearly 6 percent less than October’s. The hold for adjusted revenue was even worse, coming in at 3.2 percent and representing a top-10 lowest win rate of all time in Pennsylvania.”

That final tidbit is a doozy. And in theory, it should hold back The Keystone State’s capacity to break its yearly revenue record. But it’s not.

Pennsylvania Has Already Set a Sports Betting Revenue Record

If 2024 ended today, Pennsylvania sports betting would already sit at an all-time high. 

Through the first 10 months of the year, The Keystone State has raked in $138.4 million in sports betting tax revenue. This outstrips the previous record of $134.4 million, which was set during the 2023 calendar year. 

A 2.9 percent increase year over year isn’t necessarily something that warrants a ton of fanfare. But there are still two months’ worth of revenue reports to come. Even if online sports betting apps in Pennsylvania encounter downturns for November and December, 2024 revenue will noticeably exceed the preexisting record. 

And again, this presumes borderline worst-case scenarios. Anything better, and The Keystone State will put even more distance between 2023 and now.

How High Will Sports Betting Revenue Climb in Pennsylvania?

Rather than wait until February or March for the full catalog of 2024 data, we can take a stab at projecting Pennsylvania sports revenue ourselves. To do this, we will look at the monthly revenue average this year.

So far, Pennsylvania is making about $15.37 million per month from sports betting taxes. Some months can be (and have been) lower, but they also can be (and have been) measurably higher. 

Stick with the current average, though, and 2024 Pennsylvania sports betting tax revenue will check in at $184.4 million. And that is an increase that will warrant more in-depth discussion. After all, it is a 37 percent uptick compared to 2023—a monster different by any metric and regardless of any caveats.

Will Pennsylvania end up hitting this benchmark? We will know soon enough. It may. It may not. Heck, it may even exceed it. 

Regardless of how The Keystone State closes the year, the previous 10 months have already done a bulk of the talking. And they’re speaking volumes—record-breaking, if logic-defying, volumes. 

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