Visitation to United States casinos was up 2.3 percent in May, according to Jefferies Equity Research. But it was down 9.2 percent from pre-pandemic levels. The bright spot for casinos was that spending per patron, compared to six years ago, was up. The findings were published June 11.
“This traffic level supports the strength seen in the regional data released this week,” wrote analyst David Katz, who laid special emphasis on Missouri and Ohio.
Katz modified his optimism to the extent of noting that May 2025 had one more weekend day than May 2024, “which is likely a contributor to the YoY growth recorded.” He also thought the trend might reverse in June, which had one weekend day fewer than in 2024.
The analyst recently met with Boyd Gaming executives. His takeaway was that gambling trends remain stable in the Midwest, the South, and the locals-oriented parts of the Las Vegas market.
Despite the gap with 2019 visitor volume, Katz found reason to be upbeat, saying that it was the best visitation month since December 2023, at which point volume had declined 8.1 percent.
“We anticipate trends will continue to stabilize in 2025, as [comparisons] have started to ease vs. prior-year levels,” Katz wrote. “Additionally, the Street remains on guard for the impact of macro trends on earnings levels, including higher costs for insurance, utilities, and labor, which have challenged markets unevenly.”
Year over year, foot traffic in casinos in Ohio and Pennsylvania spiked 5.4 percent and 9.3 percent, respectively. Measured against 2019, Pennsylvania was flat and Ohio up 5.9 percent.
Atlantic City was a 1.1 percent improvement in visitor volume from May 2024, but was still 9.3 percent short of 2019 numbers. Illinois casinos lagged 2019 by 4.3 percent, but were 4.8 percent more visited than in May 2024.
“Our take is that the monthly performance reflects the ongoing normalization of traffic trends post-COVID, where volatility remains, as well as from competition and renovations in specific locations and the extra Saturday in the month,” Katz explained.
Detroit’s casinos experienced a 5.6 percent foot-traffic upsurge from May 2024, but remained 21.2 percent shy of 2019 attendance. Measurements between 2019 and 2025 in Kentucky were complicated by a spate of new casinos in the Bluegrass State. However, May 2025 visitation dipped 1.5 percent.
The most dramatic improvement was seen in Black Hawk, Colorado. That market leapt 17.6 percent from May 2024. Katz cautioned, “We believe the comparisons provide limited insight, given the strength of the new entry in the market from [Monarch Casinos & Resorts] in mid-2022, which continues to ramp and take share.”
Katz closed by enumerating that May’s foot-traffic numbers were the highest since January, which was 0.6 percent positive. It was also the highest improvement since November 2024’s 2.7 percent.
“We think these results are in line with the overall mixed performance operators have seen across regional markets this past year,” Katz wrote. He added that Penn Entertainment, with seven casinos across Illinois and Ohio, was particularly exposed.
Another company with reason to be concerned with outlying-casino performance was Caesars Entertainment, Katz wrote, as it derives 50 percent of its revenue from regional properties. Churchill Downs, by contrast, was predicted to see some benefit from new casinos in Kentucky and Virginia.
Still, the analyst sounded a note of caution. “We are focused on initial results from the opening of The Rose Gaming Resort,” in Dumfries, Virginia, “which appears to be off to a moderately slow start.”
