Ticker: Gaming revenues top $41M in December; Year-end bonuses shrink 21%
The Gaming Commission announced Tuesday that Plainridge Park Casino in Plainville, MGM Springfield and Encore Boston Harbor in Everett generated a cumulative $103.04 million in gross gaming revenue in December, enough to produce more than $29 million in monthly tax revenue for the state.
Sports wagering — bettors put about $658.7 million on the line on December games — yielded an additional $60.55 million in taxable revenue for the three physical sportsbooks and eight online betting platforms, and $12 million in revenue for Massachusetts.
Since casino-style gaming started here in 2015, Massachusetts has raked in $1.623 billion in taxes and assessments from casino operations. Total casino gaming revenues for the state totaled about $330.7 million for fiscal year 2023, up from about $310 million in fiscal 2022 and $233.1 million in fiscal 2021, according to the state’s most recent information statement. And since legal sports betting started a year ago, that activity has generated $93.87 million in total taxes and assessments.
Year-end bonuses shrink 21%
U.S. workers are getting smaller bonuses, a sign that belt-tightening employers aren’t as concerned about losing talent as in recent years.
The average cash bonus paid to employees last month was $2,145, down 21% from the previous year, according to payroll software company Gusto, which tracks payments made by more than 300,000 small businesses.
Not only were bonuses smaller, but fewer workers got them in most industries. Sixteen out of the 22 industries tracked by Gusto saw declines in the share of workers that received any sort of bonus, with the biggest drop coming at arts and entertainment firms. Compared with 2021, 6.9% fewer workers got a bonus in 2023.