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The introduction of Bally’s online casino app into Rhode Island’s gambling scene looks like a welcome addition. Revenue figures from February 2024 show the state’s gaming industry is merely treading water instead of growing without it.
The Rhode Island Lottery reported nearly $55.2 million in gaming revenue from the state’s two physical casinos and sole online sportsbook in February. Online gambling in Rhode Island during the month essentially canceled losses by brick-and-mortar gaming, clearing the way for online casino play to build on that.
Online sports betting bails out Bally’s Tiverton and Twin River
According to the latest data from the Rhode Island Lottery, Bally’s Tiverton and Bally’s Twin River casinos ed for a combined revenue total of over $53.5 million during February 2024. That includes gross win from physical slots, adjusted revenue from physical table games, and gross win from in-person sports betting.
Compared to Rhode Island gaming revenue from February 2023, that total is down marginally. Table games were the biggest drag on that sum, falling by about 16.5% year-over-year. On the contrary, slot win was up slightly in the same-month-prior-year comparison.
Fortunately for the state’s gaming industry, win from online sports betting for the month was up 16.4% year-over-year, almost matching that table games revenue decline. The state’s online sportsbook won about 7.9% of the nearly $30.4 million that Rhode Islanders wagered online during February 2024. That betting total was also up around 6.3% compared to February 2023.
As a result, the month’s total revenue from all these segments was only slightly down compared to the same month in 2023. A broader inspection of Rhode Island gaming revenue shows how ready the state was for Bally’s online casino.
Fiscal year gaming numbers trending downward in Rhode Island
Through February, the total gambling revenue from the two Bally’s land-based casinos and the state’s online sportsbook for the current fiscal year is down marginally. That includes a drop of 7.9% for online sports betting win compared to the first eight months of FY2022-23.
Enter Bally’s online casino, which began a testing period on March 1, 2024, and fully launched across the state on March 5. That new gaming could help the gambling industry get back to significant growth. To what extent that will occur, though, depends on several factors.
Among those is how heavily Bally’s invests in promoting its online casino app in the state. As the sole licensed operator in the state, that lack of competition might make Bally’s somewhat agnostic to such investment.
Another factor that might limit the success of Bally’s online casino in Rhode Island, at least to start, is a lack of live dealer games. While Bally’s plans to add such games, perhaps as soon as April 2024, those games tend to be among the most popular options in other states with real-money online casino gaming.
Without the introduction of online casino play, growth for Rhode Island’s gaming industry might have been more challenging. Future numbers from the Rhode Island Lottery will show exactly how much that gaming expansion is worth.
