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Once again, the commonwealth of Pennsylvania has reported eye-popping i-Gaming numbers from the month of August.
$582 million in revenue for the month of August turned out to be the 2nd best results for a single month since the commonwealth began regulating sports gambling in the second half of 2018.
Now consider that the 2025-2026 NFL and college football season got fully underway in September, one has to wonder if Pennsylvania online gambling could see its best numbers yet.
The August numbers were up 14% from the same month last year.
Remarkably, the 17 land-based casinos in Pennsylvania reported flat. Just a 1 percent gain was realized at table games. Still that resulted in $81 million in revnue.
Slot revenue only grew 2.6%, with an impressive $216 million recording last month.
Sport betting handle grew to $515 million in bets, up 6% year-over-year. The casino's hold grew immensely at 63% to $49 million from just $30 million last year.
College Player Prop Bets Prohibited
Like with a number of US states, PA prohbits wagering on individual player performance (also known as player prop bets).
It's impossible to fully understand the impact of excluding player prop bets for top 25 ranked teams like the Penn State Nittany Lions, but Ohio reported $104.6 million in bets on NCAA player props for the full year in 2023, representing 1.35% of Ohio’s total sports betting handle for that year. The Buckeye State now prohibits wagering on college player props.
The Ohio comparison is a good one considering both states are home to successful college football programs - primarily Penn State and Ohio State.
One estimate for 2023 suggested that college sports overall accounted for around 15% of total U.S. sports betting handle or approximately $1.7 billion.
And PA is Home to the Super Bowl Reigning Champion Philadelphia Eagles
College football is popular, but don't be fooled. Any sportsbook operator will tell you that nothing comes close to the amount of wagering on the NFL
Case in point, this past week we saw around eight NFL games with more betting action than the most wagered on college football game, that being Auburn vs. Oklahoma. These numbers were on Friday. the college football slate was scheduled for Saturday with most of the NFL games being played on Sunday. Even the Falcons-Panthers game - two of the smaller market teams - had more wagering volume than the most bet on college game.
PA is in an entirely different realm altogether as the Philadelphia Eagles come into this season as reigning Super Bowl champs.
And the Rams-Eagles Week 3 game didn't disappoint.
Jordan Davis blocked a field-goal attempt by the Rams’ Joshua Karty on the final play of the game and returned it 61 yards to the end zone to give Philly an exhilarating 33-26 win over Los Angeles on Sunday.
“I don’t know what mph I hit but I’m pretty sure it was something crazy,” Davis said.
The Eagles once again look like a Super Bowl contender and that should spell massive bet counts throughout the Keystone State. Cuple that with the fact that PA is home to the storied Pittsburgh Steelers NFL franchise, we con't help bet believe the September through December - and perhaps even January and February - numbers could shatter more state gambling records.
- Gilbert Horowitz, Gambling911.com
