Pennsylvania’s lone legal online poker operator, PokerStars, generated $2.5 million in revenue in December, according to statistics released by the state’s Gaming Control Board.

Following a soft-launch in early November, December was the first full month of online poker in the Keystone State. The rollout came more two years after the legislature legalized online gambling in 2017.

PokerStars, which obtained their gaming license by partnering with Mount Airy Casino, averaged 400 players on their site at one time. That is about four times as much as its sister site in New Jersey.

New Jersey players, however, have the option of playing on WSOP.com which has a shared player pool with its sites in Nevada and Delaware. PokerStars does not have access to those markets and WSOP has not launched a client in Pennsylvania. Even if it did, it’s likely that Pennsylvania markets would stay segregated until there is a final decision on the ongoing Wire Act court battle.

The $2.5 million in revenue only made up less than 1 percent of Pennsylvania’s $291.8 million gross gambling revenue, but online gambling is steadily taking up a bigger percentage of market share than in years past.

Most analysts believe that as the industry matures, the online market will continue to grow and take up a larger piece of the market share. No data point illustrates that better than the sports betting market.

Pennsylvania’s online sportsbooks generated nearly three times as much revenue as their brick-and-mortar counterparts. Online books won $8.4 million from bettors, while retail locations netted just $3 million.

In New Jersey, the second-largest gambling market in the country, $468.8 million of the $562.7 million bet on sports in 2019 came online.

When taking into account online gambling of all forms, including slot machines, table games and fantasy sports, the Pennsylvania online space accounted for $22.4 million revenue. The figure is just shy of 8 percent of total gambling revenue.

As is the case with most markets, slot machines were what drove most of the revenue. They accounted for $187.5 million in revenue in December. The remaining $78.9 million was generated from live table games.

With its successful December, gambling operators won $3.4 billion in 2019, representing a 4.5 percent increase from 2018.

This article is a reprint from cardplayer.com. To view the original story and comment, click here.