Viva Las Vegas: commercial casinos revealed record-setting revenues of $66.5 billion

The American Gaming Association said that total was 10% higher than in 2022, which itself was a record-setting year.

When revenue figures from tribal-owned casinos are released separately later this year, they are expected to show that overall casino gambling brought in close to $110 billion to U.S. casino operators in 2023.

That all happened in a year in which inflation, while receding, still kept things like grocery and energy costs higher than they had been.

“From the traditional casino experience to online options, American adults’ demand for gaming is at an all-time high,” said Bill Miller, the association’s president and CEO.

Early last year, when the group gave its annual statistical assessment, “inflation was high, uncertainty was in the air. Forecasters couldn’t agree what these challenges might do to discretionary income,” Miller said.

As they year went on, “inflation began to cool, consumers began to spend and the (Federal Reserve) held rates steady,” he added. “The result was a record-breaking year for our industry.”

Not even the pre-holiday shopping crunch discouraged gamblers from laying their money down: casinos won $6.2 billion in December and $17.4 billion in the fourth quarter of 2023, both of which set records.

Jane Bokunewicz, director of the Lloyd Levenson Institute at New Jersey’s Stockton University, which studies the gambling industry, said sports betting is still new enough that it may prove attractive even to those watching their budgets.

“As a form of entertainment, legal sports betting might be a new and novel experience for many patrons, and with its relatively low cost of entry, may be attractive to them even if their discretionary spending budget is limited,” she said.

In-person gambling remains the…