Is Michigan Closing In On Pennsylvania For The US Online Casino Revenue Lead?

The king of online casino revenue in the United States has long been Pennsylvania.

The Keystone State has been well ahead of the competition when it comes to gross revenue from iGaming.

While Michigan and New Jersey have been respectable in their revenue production, they haven’t been able to keep too close to PA online casinos.

Until recently.

Michigan, which has held down the second spot in the US revenue leaderboard, is now as close as its ever been to catching Pennsylvania.

Could we see a new leader in the US sometime in 2026, or into 2027?

Pennsylvania Comfortably Ahead Entering 2026

To give some perspective, Pennsylvania online casinos produced $3,463,152,378 in gross iGaming revenue in 2025.

The Michigan online casinos were a distant second with $3,087,027,384, while New Jersey online casinos came in third with $2,911,241,318.

While some media sources cite Michigan as the US leader, they are not properly attributing Pennsylvania’s production. The Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board often reports the state’s adjusted gross revenue, which subtracts bonus spend by the casino into the revenue total. The Michigan Gaming Control Board offers up both numbers, but most cite the gross revenue where bonus spend is not included. When focused on gross revenue, Pennsylvania has always been the US leader.

Michigan Making Ground Last Five Months

For all of 2025, Pennsylvania averaged roughly $31.3 million more in gross iGaming revenue than Michigan per month.

That’s a wide gap between the two states. But, by looking at the last 12 months, concluding with the recent April 2026 reports, you can see how that was the case for most of the second half of 2025.

But, we can also see that starting in December, Michigan has made some big strides in closing that gap.

Three of the last five months have seen Michigan within under $9 million of Pennsylvania for monthly revenue. This is the closest the two states have been in revenue.

What’s Sparked Michigan’s Surge?

When looking at the data, clearly some things have changed for Michigan and Pennsylvania to cause the gap to close.

Those changes are largely credited more to a Michigan surge than to Pennsylvania falling back. Both states are consistently producing record monthly revenue in their state, but Michigan’s gains have been bigger than Pennsylvania’s. There’s reasons to point to as to why.

Hard Rock Bet Launches in Michigan

The data starts to tighten between MI and PA in December, which coincides right with when Hard Rock Bet launched in Michigan, just the second state it operates in.

On Dec. 2, Hard Rock started its iGaming platform in The Mitten. That month, the operator set a new record for a debuting online casino, recording $35.7 million in revenue.

The prior license holder, SI Casino, was not even getting to $1 million per month in 2025 before ending operations.

Hard Rock Online Casino has topped $20 million in revenue in each of the first fourth months of 2026 as well. They have done that without providing major hits to other operators as well. It’s largely been additional cumulative revenue for Michigan online casinos.

Going from under $1 million from an operator to over $20 million is a huge boost for the state’s total numbers.

bet365 Launches Michigan in April

While not as big of a factor, yet, it’s still notable that Michigan also added another high-profile online casino in April when bet365 Michigan took over the license left behind by PokerStars Casino.

The transfer started in mid-April, so the full impact on what it will do for Michigan isn’t quite clear. But, with only half a month of operation, bet365 still drew $3.7 million in revenue in April for the state.

By comparison, PokerStars was topping out at about $2.1 million a month over the last year.

Should bet365 be able to build on their launch, that could bring in anywhere from $5-10 million for Michigan, which would draw the state even closer to Pennsylvania.

Pennsylvania Loses PokerStars

Similarly, PokerStars also closed its online casino operations in Pennsylvania as it partnered up with FanDuel to offer its peer-to-peer poker product.

However, PA has not been able to replace the operator as of yet.

It won’t be a massive blow to PA’s revenue number, but will still be a slight hit that could help Michigan make its push for the lead.

Hard Rock Bet is also not an available online casino in Pennsylvania as of now. Hard Rock is finding good success in both Michigan and New Jersey, thanks it part to the Hard Rock Casino bonus code. Getting Hard Rock in PA would be a big boost for The Keystone State to hold on to its iGaming lead in the US.

Michigan Still with Uphill Climb

While Michigan has closed the gap and could do it further in the months ahead, it will be tough for it to fully surpass Pennsylvania over a consistent length of time.

According to the most recent census data, Pennsylvania has roughly 9 million adults that are at least 21 years of age in the state. Michigan has just around 7.6 million. That’s a big difference when it comes to eligible online casino players.

Michigan isn’t going to be able to make up that kind of ground on iGamers, so Pennsylvania is likely to keep its hold on the overall revenue race, even if Michigan gets the occasional win.

New Jersey is listed with just under 7 million eligible online casino residents, which is why it remains third compared to the other two in revenue production.