The American Gaming Association (AGA) has announced that commercial gaming has achieved a new quarterly revenue record of US$14.81 billion during the second quarter of 2022.

The AGA’s Commercial Gaming Revenue Tracker confirmed that Q2’s revenue beat the previous record set in Q4 2021 by 3.3 per cent, and is also an 8.8 per cent improvement year-over-year.

A revenue of US$29.16 billion produced in the first half of 2022 represents a 17.8 per cent YOY increase and puts the U.S. on pace for a new annual commercial gaming revenue record for the second year in a row.

AGA President and CEO Bill Miller said that Q2’s results mark a 16-month period of gains for commercial gaming.

“With increasingly difficult year-over-year comparisons, our strength through the first half of 2022 reflects sustained consumer demand for legal options, as well as gaming’s record popularity,” Miller added.

The U.S. gaming industry’s growth rate slowed as Q2 went on – from 13.1 per cent in April to 10.7 per cent in May and to 2.5 per cent in June, which the AGA says illustrates “stabilizing consumer demand and the return to normal gaming operations one year ago”.

Of the total Q2 GGR of US$14.81 billion, slots led the way with US$8.7 billion. However, while that represented a small uptick of 0.2 per cent for slots, table games (US$2.54 billion revenue for a 18.2 per cent increase), sports betting (US$1.42 billion revenue for a 58.7 per cent improvement), and iGaming (US$1.21 billion for 34.3 per cent growth) all saw strong improvement YOY.

When it comes to the H1 2022 GGR, slots were up 8.7 per cent YOY, tables games improved 28.9 per cent, sports betting saw a 63.9 per cent rise, and iGaming was up 43.5 per cent.

The AGA noted that traditional casino gaming continues to drive industry success, with brick-and-mortar quarterly revenue records “indicating the lingering impact that COVID restrictions had on table games in the first half of 2021”.

However, Miller added that while the U.S. gaming industry is on pace to set an annual revenue record, “we are cognizant of the continued impacts of inflation and labour challenges, as well as marketplace concerns of a potential recession”.