What’s Behind Record iCasino Numbers? The Answers May Surprise

In October, Michigan set an iCasino revenue record for the state, with the online casinos there hauling in $278.5 million.

In October, Pennsylvania set an iCasino revenue record for the state, with the online casinos there hauling in $251.1 million.

In October, New Jersey set an iCasino revenue record for the state, with the online casinos there hauling in $260.3 million.

Sense a trend? 

Of course, if the online casinos are winning this much money, someone is losing all this money. And a good question is simply this: Who?

Getting that answer would be easy if the online operators would release their player data. Unfortunately, there’s a better chance of hell freezing over, thawing, freezing again, going through an unseasonably warm spring, and then freezing a third time than that happening.

So we’re left to our own devices — namely, deep internet research.

As such, I’ve identified what appear to be the three main drivers of iCasino growth: women, young men being cross-sold, and gamblers who have come in from the cold.

Ladies first

Perhaps the most eye-opening of all is the number of women being drawn to iCasino play. 

According to a November 2024 poll from Fairleigh Dickinson University (FDU), women account for about half of all online casino players. Among women ages 18-30, 19% report playing online casino, compared to 18% of men. As players get a bit older, men take the lead, but a full 14% of women ages 31-44 report playing online.

That top line data is worth repeating: Women account for half of all online casino players. 

In truth, this should come as little surprise as more mature markets, such as Australia, see women gambling nearly as much as men. In Victoria, 51% of women gamble regularly, compared to 56% of men. In New South Wales, it’s 48% of women compared to 58% of men.

In Great Britain, a full one-third of women report playing at least some iCasino in the past year. 

America does not seem to be an outlier here, and while U.S. gambling companies have not fully embraced marketing to women, it would seem that should be high on the to-do list.

Women started migrating to online casinos during the pandemic, according to a researcher at Concordia University in Montreal. 

Sylvia Kairouz, a professor in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology, also found that women prefer slots whereas men are more drawn to table games.

“Often, [women] will say, ‘We feel a little hypnotized when we play, we take our minds off things and we decompress,’” Kairouz told Montreal City News.

TL;DR: Women are gambling in online casinos in numbers similar to — and sometimes exceeding — men, and no one is talking about it.

The cross sell

The second driver is the young male sports bettor who’s discovered casino games almost by accident. Think men in their 20s, 30s, and 40s who signed up to bet on sports but are being driven to the casino side of the apps. Again, from the FDU poll: Some 26% of men under 45 have bet on sports online, and the operators have gotten pretty good at converting them into iCasino players.

BetMGM has publicly acknowledged its cross-sell success, noting an 11.5% increase in cross-sell from sports to casino during the 2024 NFL season. That number grew to 13% in the first quarter of 2025.

In a 2020 investor presentation, DraftKings noted its cross-sell rate was an eye-popping 98% in New Jersey.

Clearly, getting people from the low-margin sportsbook to the high-margin casino is part of the plan for all operators, and it’s obvious the plan is working.

Welcome to the legal market

Despite the myriad legal and quasi-legal ways to bet on sports in America, upward of 75% of action still takes place offshore, according to a report by the Campaign for Fairer Gambling.

How to get these bettors over to the legal stateside operators, who then, in turn, can turn them on to iCasino?

Somewhat surprisingly, the government plays a role. 

According to data from GeoComply, states that actively enforce — or at least attempt to enforce — regulations against offshore providers see a 10% faster growth rate in active, legal players compared to non-enforcement states and a 39% rate of registrations.

Obviously, these are seasoned gamblers, no strangers to both sports betting and iCasino. Grabbing them into the ecosystem — while slow going — brings more people to the casino side of the operation via the cross-sell.

What’s it all mean?

Well, who knows? But one thing seems relatively clear: The record-breaking revenue numbers aren’t coming from desperate gamblers or a single demographic. They’re coming from experienced bettors going legal, sports fans discovering casino games, and an entirely new — and really underreported — female audience.

Together, they’ve created a market in the handful of states with legal iCasino that shows zero signs of slowing down.