Sports betting is less than a year old in the Sunflower State after the state launched Kansas sportsbooks last September just ahead of the 2022 NFL season.
But as popular as wagering on sports is (Kansasā sports-betting handle surpassed $200 million in January), is Kansas one of the most casino-loving states in the nation?
With so many states legalizing online casinos and building new land-based casinos across the country, BetKansas looked at what states love casinos and gambling the most.
Method For Determining Most Casino-Loving States
BetKansas used four combined data points to develop the ranking of the 50 U.S. states from most casino-loving to least. We used UNLVās Center for Gaming Research report for the 2022 casino revenue category, Google Trends for most searches of āonline casinoā and ācasinos near meā and Wikipedia for casinos per capita.
For the casinos per capita and 2022 revenue categories, we gave 50 points for the top state in the category, down to one point for the bottom state. Points for the two Google Trend categories (again up to 50 points each) are combined into one "most searches" column in this chart, so that category has a maximum score of 100.
Here are the results, featuring the top 15 states that embrace casino gaming the most:
Ranking of Casino-Loving States
Kansas Comes in at No. 8 For Casino Interest
It is no shock that Nevada, anchored by Las Vegas, which has the most casinos of any city in the world, takes the top spot.
Kansas slides into the Top 10, landing at No. 8. The stateās gaming scene includes Kansas sports betting apps as well as brick-and-mortar casinos, which also take wagers on sporting events.
What led to the ranking? For starters, Kansas garnered the second-most points (90) in the āMost Searched for Casinosā category, trailing only Oklahoma (93 points). Kansas was middle of the road in terms of casinos per capita, ranking eighth. In overall revenue, Kansas ranked 12th out of the Top 15 states, ahead of only New Mexico, Oklahoma and South Dakota.
The four state-owned casinos (Boot Hill Casino & Resort, Hollywood Casino at Kansas Speedway, Kansas Star Casino and Kansas Crossing Casino) saw a slight dip in numbers for January Kansas casino revenue and taxes. The four casinos combined for $33.1 million in revenue in January, a 5.5% drop from Decemberās figures (just over $35 million).
Breakdown of Kansas Casinos
Kansas Star Casino & Resort in Mulvane raked in the most revenue in January ($13.4 million). According to numbers from the Kansas State Lottery, Kansas Star and Hollywood Casino are the two casinos in Kansas to clear $1 billion in total revenue since they opened. Kansas Star, which opened in Dec. 2011, is over $1.9 billion and Hollywood Casino, which opened in February 2012, is over $1.5 billion.
Boot Hill, the oldest of the four casinos, opened in December 2009 and is over $537 million.
In year-to-year numbers, though, Kansasā January 2023 revenue was a 10.6% increase from the same month in 2022, when the four casinos combined for reported revenue of $29.9 million.
Kansas also has five federally recognized tribes that operate casinos in the state. Four of them operate one casino each, while another tribe ā the Wayandotte Nation of Oklahoma ā has two casinos in The Sunflower State.
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