AGA’s State of the States
by American Gaming Association & Vixio Regulatory Intelligence
122 pp., May 2024, Free Online
I firmly believe that keeping informed about our industry is a critical element in building a successful career in gaming. While I regularly review books on related gaming topics that can also help, some of the best sources today are online.
If you are reading this, you’ve already discovered one of the best daily reads from CDC Gaming. Next month, the organization will rebrand to just “CDC Gaming”. But by any other name, it is still one of the best sources for current news about our industry gathered from across the nation and around the globe.
Before CDC, my first read was always Pechanga.net. Not to be confused with the Pechanga Resort Casino, this organization was an independent news-gathering service put together by a respected Pechanga tribal member, Victor Rocha. It is still around and worth your time. In addition to casino topics, Victor’s site is a superb source for tribal news and often leads the way about online gaming topics and events.
Another newer source is The Monitor Room, presented by World Game Protection. This is an excellent compendium of the latest news about casino crime and fraudsters. Their sign-up is free, but be forewarned, they may not let everyone join their distribution list. (No sense giving the bad folks a heads up). The Monitor Room is definitely worth following.
While not as timely, it is also important to track industry trends. Before gaming escaped from Nevada in 1976, the best sources about our emerging industry were the research reports done by the visitor and convention organizations in Reno and Las Vegas (the RSCVA and the LVCVA, respectively). You can still see many of their reports online. Reno/Sparks still shows their work from 2016 forward. For Las Vegas, you can see the Tourism Statistics reports as far back as 1970 for Las Vegas. While both these cities are a bit different, much of the data is universal.
Another excellent source of trend information comes from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas (UNLV). Their Center for Gaming Research has Nevada stats from 1963 forward and tracks historical gaming activity in several other jurisdictions. You should definitely take a look at what they offer.
But, what I consider the best overall source for data on our industry today comes from the American Gaming Association. The AGA has been doing an annual report on the commercial gaming industry since 1999. Their latest 2024 State of the States report was released in May of this year. Despite the name, it covers the 2023 gaming year.
While you’ll have trouble finding the AGA reports from the early years, they do still show their State of the States work from 2016 forward. In that report eight years ago, then-CEO Geoff Freeman said, “We compile State of the States with the intention of providing interested parties with the single most comprehensive resource about the U.S. casino industry.”
Truer words were never spoken. Bill Miller now heads the organization and in the introduction to the 2024 report he says, “Last year was another outstanding year for commercial gaming, with record-breaking achievements that highlighted our industry’s resilience and growth. Propelled by an expanding U.S. gaming landscape, the commercial casino sector enjoyed a third consecutive record year with gaming revenue accelerating by 10.3 percent to nearly $66.7 billion. When tribal gaming’s performance is factored in, the U.S. gaming industry likely generated close to $110 billion in gaming revenue in 2023, a remarkable 40 percent higher than 2019.”
While the AGA’s reports are centered on Commercial Gaming, in recent years they have included data from tribal operations supplied by the National Indian Gaming Commission. As Miller said, $110 billion in revenue is truly remarkable. That puts gaming ahead of the motion picture industry ($6.4B), concerts ($28.6B [that includes Taylor Swift]), books ($29.9B) and even Pay-TV ($58.2B).
Be careful when you search for these reports. It’s easy to get sidetracked by the Attorney Generals Alliance (AGA), the American Gas Association (AGA) or even the American Gastroenterological Association (AGA). There’s also the AGA Swedish Cook Stove group, the Association of Government Accountants (AGA), the American Galvanizers Association (AGA), and the Accredited Gemologist Association (AGA).
Don’t think it’s any easier to search the “State of the States”. You might get the report from the London School of Economics & Political Science, or a similar one from Stateline.org which has issued their “State of the States” reports since 2005.
Here’s the link you want: https://www.americangaming.org/research/. For the older reports, scroll down to the date field and enter a year from 2016 to 2024.
Every year seems to have some encouraging news with the rare exception of the COVID years. Here’s another gem from this year’s report: “In 2023, 32 of the 36 jurisdictions with commercial casinos, iGaming or sports betting operations saw a rise in annual gaming revenue, with only the District of Columbia, Florida, Indiana and Mississippi contracting. Thirty of the 36 jurisdictions posted record levels of commercial gaming revenue. Notably, Kentucky joined the commercial casino marketplace in 2023 with the launch of sports betting in the Bluegrass State.”
If you haven’t done so in the past, this report should be on your reading list every single year.
