Kansas Casinos Continue Steady Growth, Generate $37.3 Million in August

Amid the national explosion in gambling, Kansas’ casino market only took a modest step forward during August.

The Kansas Racing and Gaming Commission released its unaudited figures for August, revealing that the state’s four retail casinos generated $37.3 million in revenue. That figure represented a 3.9 percent improvement on the $35.9 million they reported one year ago.

Kansas legalized state-owned casinos in 2007, and its four current casinos launched in 2009, 2011, 2012 and 2017, respectively.

Steady growth

Although the figures that were reported were unaudited, they still paint a picture of what happened in the state’s gaming market during August.

According to the monthly report, Hollywood Casino & Resort posted a state-high with $15.1 million in revenue. $13.4 million of that came from electronic gaming machines. 

Just behind the state leader was Kansas Star Casino & Resort, which came in with a total of $14.6 million. $12.9 million of its total was generated by electronic gaming machines, and its 3.7 percent year-over-year revenue improvement was nearly on par with Hollywood Casino’s 4.2 percent mark.

The bronze medal for revenue was awarded to Boot Hill Casino & Resort, although its $4.1 million total was far off the top two operators. The final tally also represented an ever-so-slight decrease from the total that was reported last year, which also rounded to $4.1 million.

Kansas Cross Casino & Resort brought up the rear in August with a $3.5 million revenue total. However, unlike Boot Hill Casino, it beat its August 2024 total ($3.2 million) by 8.3 percent.

The market pays off

After counting the final numbers, Kansas’ casinos generated $10.2 million in additional funding. Three operators paid 22 percent of that to the state, while Boot Hill paid 24 percent.

The state’s total ended up checking in at $8.3 million, beating out the total that was generated last year, in part due to the increase from 22 to 24 percent paid to the state by Boot Hill (which contributed $990,816.74 to the total).

The local share of the revenue represented three percent of the revenue total, which equaled $1.1 million.

The state also allocated two percent of the total revenue to funding its problem gambling resources and programs. That resulted in $746,745.97 being paid to support those initiatives.

Looking ahead, the state’s casinos generated significantly less during the current month, September, than they just did during August. Whereas the most recent revenue total was above $37 million, the September 2024 number checked in at only $32.3 million.

That means that August 2025’s figure was 15.7 percent ahead of September 2024’s. That’s a promising sign for potential growth, as Kansas isn’t a tourist-rich state that thrives during the summer months relative to the rest of the calendar.