In his year-end letter, Invoice Miller, the president and CEO of the American Gaming Affiliation (AGA), exudes optimism concerning the course of the industrial and tribal gaming industries and believes their greatest years are nonetheless to return.
Invoice Miller, president and CEO of the American Gaming Affiliation, is optimistic in regards to the industrial and tribal gaming industries’ outlook for 2025. The industries generated file income in 2024 for the fourth consecutive 12 months. (Picture: American Gaming Affiliation)
America is house to extra gaming choices than ever earlier than. Further industrial and tribal casinos are opening, new verticals like sports activities betting, iGaming, and parimutuel historic horse racing (HHR) machines are discovering new markets, and the convergence between gaming, sports activities, and leisure continues to harmonize.
It’s led to unprecedented play, as 2024 will mark the fourth consecutive 12 months of file gross gaming income (GGR). Miller, who leads the business’s most distinguished lobbying commerce group within the nation’s capital, says gaming continues to achieve a wider viewers by formulating new experiences.
Whereas this development has been pushed primarily by the continued growth of on-line gaming and sports activities betting, our conventional brick-and-mortar operations have proven robust resilience within the face of macroeconomic headwinds. As we strategy year-end, the business stays effectively on observe to surpass final 12 months’s file $67 billion in annual industrial gaming income,” Miller wrote.
“We will level with satisfaction to development throughout each gaming vertical. This development not solely displays elevated client engagement but in addition underscores the business’s function as a major driver of financial impression nationwide,” the AGA boss added.
2025 Outlook
With 2024 in its remaining week, Miller is looking forward to 2025. He sees “large alternative” throughout the industrial and tribal gaming landscapes.
One of many business’s most vital successes lately is sports activities betting. In a case led by New Jersey, the U.S. Supreme Court docket in Might 2018 overturned a federal regulation that had restricted single-game sports activities betting to Nevada.
Since then, practically 40 states and Washington, D.C., have handed legal guidelines authorizing sports activities playing. Bringing sports activities into the authorized gaming enterprise has attracted a much-needed, coveted, youthful demographic to gaming.
Earlier than the landmark 2018 SCOTUS determination, casinos throughout the nation invested closely in new gaming merchandise that have been tailor-made towards youthful audiences. Talent-based playing merchandise largely didn’t resonate. Sports activities betting did.
On account of sportsbooks coming each to brick-and-mortar casinos and on-line in lots of states, the age of the business’s common on line casino customer dropped from 50 to 42 lately.
As we glance to 2025, we anticipate the sports activities, gaming, and leisure convergence to proceed, creating new alternatives to innovate throughout platforms and ship seamless, built-in, and immersive experiences,” Miller wrote.
The AGA president added that accountable gaming will stay a pillar of its members’ commitments to the jurisdictions the place they function. With out accountable play, Miller stated, sustainable development is inconceivable.
Bipartisan Business
Although many industries have change into politicized — fertility, training, surroundings, and firearms, for instance — Miller says gaming has bipartisan help in each the federal government and within the court docket of public opinion.
Latest AGA analysis discovered that 70% of each Donald Trump and Kamala Harris voters help authorized gaming. Believing gaming “has transcended political divides,” Miller credit the business’s impression on communities, together with job creation, tourism will increase, and new tax income, as major causes for across-the-aisle help.
Miller is keen to work with Trump’s incoming administration, the subsequent Congress, and state governments throughout the nation to additional improve gaming.
“This bipartisan embrace shall be essential,” Miller concluded.
