(The Center Square) — July 1 marked a new fiscal year for Louisiana’s Gaming Control Board and the month’s revenue numbers were in flux compared to the prior month.
Harrah’s Casino in New Orleans, the state’s lone land-based casino gaming facility, saw increased revenues of $2.5 million, or 16.4% in July. The $17.7 million return is also up 1.3% from July of last year.
Video poker profits were also up slightly from the previous month at 0.4%. With July revenue numbers at $60.5 million, that equals about a $250,000 increase. However, the revenue was down 1.6% from the previous year.
Sportsbooks also had only a slight increase from the previous month, up from $1.4 million to $1.5 million. Like video gaming, the year to year revenue is down, but much more drastic with a 17.9% decrease from July 2023. The total fiscal 2023-24 revenue ended in June with a 22.3% decrease from the previous fiscal year despite 5% fewer wagers written.
Riverboat gambling traditionally has the highest revenues, but July was relatively low. A decrease of 10.3% from June, or $15.7 million, brought the total revenues for the new fiscal year at a little over $138 million. This number is also down 5.8% from this month last year.
Racetrack revenues came in a little over $25 million for July. The numbers were down 11.7% or $3.3 million from last month. Compared to July last year revenues also decreased 9.1%. This downward trend is nothing new for the racetracks, which have seen total profits drop annually since 2021.
Racetracks weren’t the only category that saw a decrease in total revenues from last fiscal year. Fantasy sports, which were down from $59,000 last month to $43,000 in June, saw a total decrease of 39% from fiscal 2022-23. Fantasy sports didn’t start off the fiscal year well, with revenues down 18.1% compared to July 2023.
Mobile sports gaming saw the opposite year over year trend. Although the revenue numbers dropped $2.3 million to $22.5 million from last month, the net proceeds were up 43% from this month last year. Wagers were also up from July 2023, with 50 million more wagers written in July 2024.