Other Gambling Industries (U.S.) — NAICS 713290

An investor's primer on the "everything-else" of American gambling: the neighborhood slot routes, card rooms, bingo halls, off-track betting parlors, and historical-racing machines that sit outside the casino floor.

1. Overview

North American Industry Classification System (NAICS) code 713290 covers commercial gambling that is not a casino, a casino hotel, or a racetrack. In practice that means the machines and rooms most Americans actually gamble in day-to-day: video gaming terminals (VGTs) in bars and truck stops, slot "routes," poker and card rooms, bingo halls, off-track betting (OTB) parlors, bookmakers, historical horse racing (HHR) parlors, and lottery ticket sales agents. It is the fragmented, neighborhood-level layer of the gambling economy [2].

Why it matters: this layer generates roughly $18.4 billion in annual receipts by the federal count [1], but that number understates its reach, because the biggest adjacent forms of gambling are legally housed elsewhere (state lotteries in government, tribal gaming on sovereign land, casinos in their own codes). The economics here are attractive in a specific way — recurring, machine-driven revenue with low staffing and revenue-share partners who supply the real estate — which is why private capital has been rolling these operators up.

• Public ways in: one genuinely clean listed pure-play (Accel Entertainment, a VGT route operator), plus equipment/content suppliers and adjacent racetrack and online-betting names. See Section 4.
• Private ways in: this is mostly a private-capital and family-business world — Oaktree-backed J&J Ventures, family-owned California card rooms, nonprofit bingo. Direct ownership of a licensed location or route is possible but heavily gated by state licensing.

The best lens for either audience is not simply "gambling." It is regulated customer access plus repeat wagering: the operator's ability to retain a small, engineered edge on high-frequency play after payouts, taxes, and partner splits.

2. What it is and how it's structured

In scope (713290): establishments primarily operating gambling facilities other than casinos, or providing gambling services [2]. Illustrative examples from the classification: bingo halls; off-track betting parlors; slot-machine and VGT parlors and route operators; coin-operated gambling-device concession operators; bookmakers; card rooms and poker rooms; and lottery ticket sales agents that are not general retail stores [2].

By business model, the code contains several distinct activities:

• Consumer-facing venues and routes: card rooms, bingo halls, OTB shops, and the VGT/slot routes that place machines across many small host businesses.
• Device concessions: operators who own and service coin-operated gambling machines placed in third-party locations.
• Charitable and nonprofit gaming: church, veterans'-hall, and fraternal bingo and pull-tabs.
• Equipment and content suppliers (odds, machines, systems) sit alongside the industry but are frequently classified outside 713290.

Explicitly excluded — and this matters for sizing:

• Casinos — NAICS 713210 (Casinos, except Casino Hotels) and 721120 (Casino Hotels).
• Racetracks and live racing/sporting events — NAICS 711212 (Racetracks) and 711219 (Other Spectator Sports) [2].
• Non-gambling coin-op arcades and amusement devices — NAICS 713120 (Amusement Arcades) or 713990.
• Government-run lotteries — counted in public administration (NAICS 92), not here.
• Tribal casino gaming — conducted by sovereign tribal governments and largely outside the Census Bureau's business statistics.

The Census Bureau itself cautions that its Gambling Industries group does not provide full coverage of all U.S. gambling activity [2] — a warning that frames Section 3.

Ownership mix. The industry is bar-belled. At one end sit a handful of consolidating route and machine operators that place thousands of terminals across many small venues. At the other sits a very long tail of single-location card rooms, church and veterans'-hall bingo, and small OTB shops. The U.S. Small Business Administration's (SBA) size standard for this industry is $40 million in average annual receipts [3] — meaning the overwhelming majority of operators qualify as "small businesses." (That threshold is a government-program classification, not a measure of typical company size or a revenue ceiling.)

3. How big it is

Federal ground-truth figures for NAICS 713290:

Two things jump out. First, revenue per worker is high — roughly $300,000 of receipts per employee (2022 receipts over 2023 headcount, so approximate) — because machines, not staff, do most of the "work." Second, concentration is moderate: the top four firms take 30.8% of receipts (CR4), the top eight 43.1% (CR8), the top 20 58.4% (CR20), and the top 50 70.9% (CR50), with a Herfindahl-Hirschman Index (HHI, a standard concentration gauge) of just 333 [1] — well below the 1,500 the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) treats as "unconcentrated." That reflects the bar-bell: a few large consolidators plus thousands of tiny operators.

Receipts are not consumer wagering. The $18.4 billion is revenue retained by operators after paying out winnings, not the total amount wagered (the "handle"). Handle across these verticals runs many multiples higher — see Section 5.

The undercount caveat is central to this code, and cuts two ways:

Missing pieces of 713290 itself. County Business Patterns counts only employer establishments with paid staff; it excludes self-employed and most government workers [4], and the Census Bureau's separate Nonemployer Statistics program covers businesses without payroll [22]. Tiny and nonprofit operators (charitable bingo, single-table card rooms) are therefore prone to under-capture.

Legally-adjacent gambling counted elsewhere. The activities 713290 names are dwarfed by gambling booked in other codes:

• State lotteries: ~$104.7 billion in ticket sales in fiscal 2024, returning ~$29.7 billion to states — but this is government, not counted in 713290 [5].
• Tribal gaming: a record $43.9 billion in gross gaming revenue in fiscal 2024, on sovereign land outside the business census [6].
• Commercial casinos, sports betting and iGaming (internet casino gaming): a record $71.9 billion in 2024 by the American Gaming Association's (AGA) count — but casinos sit in 713210/721120, and online sports betting and iGaming are often classified outside 713290 as well [7].

So the federal number is best read as: the neighborhood, non-casino slice of a much larger gambling economy. The supplied data do not include total handle, per-state market share, a clean public/private/government ownership split, or a NAICS-specific growth forecast; none is invented here.

4. The investable universe

There is one clean listed pure-play — a VGT route operator — surrounded by suppliers and adjacent names. Most of the industry is private. The table below is a set of selected exposures, not a complete list of firms classified under 713290.

Suppliers / technology (not operators): Light & Wonder (NASDAQ: LNW); IGT — now private after Apollo Global Management combined IGT's gaming/digital arm with Everi in a $6.3 billion deal that closed July 2025 (the listed remnant, lottery-only, is Brightstar Lottery) [13]; sports-data firms Genius Sports (NYSE: GENI) and Sportradar (NASDAQ: SRAD).

Further online adjacents (classified outside 713290, casino/online names): the broader U.S. online-wagering set — BetMGM (a 50/50 MGM Resorts/Entain joint venture), Caesars (NASDAQ: CZR), PENN Entertainment (NASDAQ: PENN, ESPN BET/theScore Bet), Rush Street Interactive (NYSE: RSI, BetRivers), and Bally's (NYSE: BALY) — competes for the same wagering dollar but is a different business from the physical convenience layer.

Major private / other owners of 713290-type operations:

• J&J Ventures Gaming — Oaktree Capital-backed; the other top-tier route operator, ~26,000 machines and 3,600+ locations across Illinois, Nevada, Montana, Pennsylvania, and Nebraska, and ~30% of the Illinois VGT market [14].
• California card rooms — ~78 licensed, mostly family- and locally-owned [15].
• Charitable/nonprofit bingo and pull-tab operators — churches, veterans' posts, fraternal orders.
• Tribal bingo halls — sovereign, outside commercial ownership.

Bottom line for allocators: to own this specific industry in public markets, Accel is effectively the only pure exposure; everything else is a supplier, an adjacent racetrack/online play, or private.

5. How the money works

Owners in 713290 make money on the hold — the small edge kept from every dollar wagered — turned into recurring, high-margin cash. The metrics that matter here are gambling metrics, not store or hotel metrics:

• Handle vs. GGR (gross gaming revenue). Handle is the total amount wagered; GGR is handle minus winnings paid out. GGR is the real revenue line. Hold percentage = GGR ÷ handle. For machines and card games the hold is engineered — set by game rules and pay tables — so it is far more predictable than a sportsbook's, which swings with the outcome of games.
• Win per unit per day / net terminal income (NTI). For machine businesses, the key productivity number is average daily win per terminal. In Illinois, statewide VGT net terminal income reached $3.09 billion in fiscal 2025 across more than 49,000 terminals [16].
• Revenue-share splits. Route operators don't own the venue — they split GGR with the location partner and the state. In Illinois, after ~92% of wagers are returned as winnings, the remaining NTI is split among the operator (~32%), the location (~32%), the state (30%), the municipality (5%), and the equipment provider (~1%) [8]. The location partner supplies floor space and foot traffic; the operator supplies, licenses, services, and monitors the machines.
• Per-location economics. A productive VGT venue can generate on the order of $80,000–$100,000 a year in gross profit for the operator, and a similar amount for the host business [8]. Growth then comes from two levers: more locations/terminals (Accel ended 2025 at ~4,500 locations and ~27,950 terminals [8]) and same-location win growth.

Other verticals inside the code monetize differently:

• Card rooms can't bank the game in states like California, so they earn a rake / seat fee (a per-hand or time-based charge) plus food, beverage, and third-party proposition-player arrangements — a services model, not a house-edge model.
• Historical horse racing (HHR) parlors run slot-like machines whose outcomes derive from archived races; operators keep a commission on handle. Kentucky HHR handle hit ~$9.6 billion in fiscal 2024, and the machines now dwarf live-race betting [11].
• Bingo / charitable gaming earns a hold on card and pull-tab sales, typically for a nonprofit beneficiary — low-margin and shrinking (more below).
• Off-track betting and bookmaking earn the pari-mutuel takeout (a fixed cut of the betting pool) or the sportsbook hold on wagers.

Because terminals and tables run with little labor, incremental GGR drops heavily to EBITDA (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization). The main capital cost is the machines themselves, and the main "tax" is the literal gaming tax — which the state can change. Useful diligence metrics: handle growth and hold, win-per-unit trends, gaming-tax burden and partner revenue share, location count and retention, and free cash flow after machine capital expenditure.

6. What drives demand

• Legalization and state expansion. This industry grows mostly by policy, not GDP. Each new state that authorizes VGTs, HHR, or card games adds a greenfield market; Illinois built a ~$3 billion VGT market from scratch after 2012 [16].
• Convenience and proximity. The pitch is gambling where people already are — the corner bar, the truck stop, the fraternal hall — versus a drive to a casino. Mobile and in-venue apps reduce friction further for the online adjacents.
• Consumer discretionary spending. Gambling spend is cyclical and competes with other leisure dollars; it softens when household budgets tighten.
• Substitution across verticals. Demand shifts among lotteries, casinos, online sportsbooks, iGaming, sweepstakes apps, "skill" machines, and — increasingly — prediction-market event contracts. Convenience gambling both feeds on and competes with these.
• Demographics and habit. Machine and bingo play skews older and local; sports betting and iGaming skew younger and online — a real generational split in where the next wagering dollar goes.
• Conversion from unregulated play. Legal operators can absorb customers where regulation replaces offshore, gray, or informal alternatives — though enforcement and outcomes vary by state.

A caution on the growth thesis: further state legalization may get harder, not easier, as legislatures weigh consumer protection, tax revenue, tribal interests, incumbent operators, and public opposition.

7. Regulation

Gambling in the U.S. is regulated state by state, and 713290 is the most locally-governed slice of it. There is no general federal license; each state (and often each municipality, via local opt-in or referendum) sets the rules:

• Licensing and suitability. Operators, locations, and often individual investors undergo background checks, financial disclosure, and suitability review; systems face technical audits, age verification, and responsible-gaming controls. This is the main barrier to entry — capital is available, licenses are not.
• Terminal caps, bet limits, tax rates. States cap machines per location, set maximum bets and payouts, and set the gaming tax. Illinois, for example, taxes VGT income at 35% and generated ~$1.08 billion for state and local governments in fiscal 2025 [16]. Tax rates can be raised with little notice — a standing risk to operator margins.
• Anti-money-laundering. Card rooms and larger operators fall under the Bank Secrecy Act (BSA) and FinCEN (Financial Crimes Enforcement Network) Title 31 reporting, with know-your-customer (KYC) and suspicious-activity requirements [23].
• Federal overlay. The Indian Gaming Regulatory Act (IGRA, 1988) governs tribal gaming under the National Indian Gaming Commission (NIGC), with Class III games requiring a tribal-state compact [6]. The Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act (UIGEA, 2006) restricts payments for illegal online gambling. The Wire Act governs interstate wagering; DOJ has opined that transmissions unrelated to sporting events fall outside it [20]. And the Supreme Court's 2018 Murphy v. NCAA decision struck down the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act (PASPA), opening state-by-state sports betting [19].
• Prediction markets — the newest fault line. The Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) is writing rules for event contracts, including sports-related ones. Where these federally-regulated "bets" end and state-regulated wagering begins is unsettled, and a favorable ruling could route wagering demand around state gambling regimes entirely [21].
• The live regulatory front — "gray" gambling. In 2025 states moved aggressively against sweepstakes casinos (dual-currency online apps that mimic casino play): Montana became the first to ban them outright, and Connecticut, New Jersey, New York, and others followed, with more acting into 2026 [17]. Unregulated "skill" machines are a parallel enforcement fight. These crackdowns cut both ways — they remove gray competitors to licensed 713290 operators, but they also show how fast the legal line can move.

Compliance here is not a back-office function; it is a core operating capability and, given how hard licenses are to win, a competitive moat.

8. Competitive dynamics and consolidation

The establishment layer is extremely fragmented (thousands of bars, halls, and rooms), but the operator layer is consolidating fast. The moderate NAICS concentration figures (Section 3) blend many activities and should not be read as any single vertical's market structure [1][2].

• Route gaming is a two-horse race at the top. In Illinois — the anchor market — Accel and Oaktree-backed J&J Ventures lead by a wide margin; J&J alone holds roughly 30% of the state's VGT net terminal income [14]. Both have grown by acquisition, and J&J bought Golden Entertainment's Nevada and Montana routes for a combined $322.5 million as Golden exited to focus on casinos and taverns [9]. Scale matters because per-machine servicing and licensing costs fall with density — a classic roll-up.
• Private capital is the dominant owner. Oaktree behind J&J; Apollo behind the new IGT/Everi supplier combine [13]. This is a private-equity playground precisely because the cash flows are recurring and the licenses are moats. The key distinction to watch: scale that lowers unit cost versus scale that merely funds more promotion.
• Cross-vertical competition. Convenience operators compete less with each other than with casinos, state lotteries, online sportsbooks, iGaming, and sweepstakes/skill machines for the same wagering dollar.
• Tribal-vs-commercial friction. In California, tribes with constitutionally-exclusive casino rights have sought to curb commercial card rooms; the 2024 SB 549 law let tribes sue, but a court dismissed the initial case in October 2025 on federal-preemption grounds (an appeal is expected) [15]. The dispute is a live threat to card-room economics in the largest state.
• B2B suppliers are attractive targets. Machine, content, and data vendors whose systems are embedded in operator workflows, on multiyear contracts, make natural acquisition prizes — part of what drove the Apollo/IGT/Everi combination [13].

9. Risks

• Tax and rule changes. The single biggest swing factor. States can raise gaming taxes, cut terminal caps, or change payout rules at will; operators are price-takers on policy.
• Geographic concentration. The listed pure-play (Accel) and the leading private operator (J&J) both lean heavily on Illinois; a single state's policy shift is an outsized risk.
• Cannibalization from online. Legalized iGaming and mobile sportsbooks could pull play away from physical VGTs, HHR, and bingo — a structural, not cyclical, threat. (Forward-looking judgment.)
• Prediction markets. CFTC-regulated event contracts could siphon sports-wagering demand under a lighter, federal framework that bypasses state gambling rules [21]. (Forward-looking judgment.)
• Gray-market whipsaw. Sweepstakes and skill-machine bans can help licensed operators, but the same legislative energy can turn on legal convenience gambling; regulatory sentiment is volatile [17].
• Litigation. The California card-room/tribal fight shows how legal challenges can threaten an entire vertical in a state [15].
• Consumer cyclicality. Gambling spend falls when discretionary budgets tighten.
• Declining legacy verticals. Charitable bingo and pull-tabs are shrinking — North American charitable gaming fell ~2.4% in a recent year, and Virginia charitable gross sales dropped more than 6% amid new casino and skill-game competition [18].
• Social license / problem gambling. Expanded access invites responsible-gaming rules, advertising limits, and reputational risk.
• Measurement risk. Federal business statistics miss nonemployer, informal, offshore, and government-run activity [22], so any market read built on 713290 alone is partial.

10. How to invest, and the outlook

Public routes.

• Accel Entertainment (ACEL) is the only clean listed exposure to non-casino convenience gambling — a route-operator roll-up valued on enterprise-value-to-EBITDA (EV/EBITDA) rather than yield; it reinvests and buys back stock rather than paying a meaningful dividend [8].
• Inspired Entertainment (INSE) offers the supplier angle (machines and content) with less operating exposure to any single state [10].
• Churchill Downs (CHDN) gives HHR exposure, though its core is racetracks and online betting [11].
• DraftKings (DKNG) / Flutter (FLUT), plus the broader online set (Caesars, BetMGM, PENN, Rush Street, Bally's), are the online-gambling adjacents — larger and faster-growing, but a different (and arguably competing) business than the physical convenience layer [12].
• Reserve valuation multiples, share prices, and yields for these names; the underlying industry is not primarily a stock-market sector. For any operator, look at handle, hold, and net revenue together, normalize sports outcomes for the online names, and weigh gaming-tax and market-access exposure against durable cash generation.

Private routes. This is fundamentally a private-capital and small-business industry. Institutional access is mainly through private-equity sponsors (Oaktree, Apollo) or direct ownership of a licensed route or venue — gated everywhere by state suitability review, which is the real barrier. Underwrite the license and market-access agreement before the growth story: check license transferability and duration, state tax exposure, host-venue and revenue-share economics, retention after promotions end, compliance staffing, and the availability of strategic buyers at exit. Card-room and bingo ownership are local, relationship-driven, and licensing-intensive.

Near-term drivers to watch (forward-looking judgments):

• State expansion of VGTs and HHR into new jurisdictions is the primary growth engine — each new state is a greenfield.
• Continued operator consolidation, as density economics reward the largest route operators.
• The sweepstakes/skill-game crackdown, which could redirect players toward regulated venues while also signaling regulatory appetite that could later reach licensed convenience gambling [17].
• iGaming legalization and prediction markets, the key structural risks — beneficial for online adjacents, potentially cannibalizing for physical VGTs and bingo [21].
• Illinois specifics — tax policy and same-location win trends — because the market anchors the listed and leading private operators alike [16].

The measured read: a durable, cash-generative, license-protected industry with a strong private-capital bid, growing chiefly by policy expansion and roll-up — but exposed, more than most sectors, to the two things it cannot control: state tax rates and the migration of wagering online.

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Sources

1. U.S. Census Bureau. "Economic Census 2022 — Concentration of Largest Firms, NAICS 713290 (Other Gambling Industries)." 2025. https://data.census.gov/table/ECNSIZE2022.EC2200SIZECONCEN?g=010XX00US&n=713290 (receipts, firm count, concentration ratios, HHI).
2. U.S. Census Bureau. "2022 NAICS Definition: 713290 Other Gambling Industries (definition, illustrative examples, cross-references, coverage caveat)." 2022. https://www.census.gov/naics/?details=713290&input=713290&year=2022
3. U.S. Small Business Administration. "Table of Size Standards, NAICS 713290 ($40 million receipts)." 2023. https://www.sba.gov/document/support-table-size-standards
4. U.S. Census Bureau. "County Business Patterns, NAICS 713290 (establishments, employment, annual and Q1 payroll)." 2023. https://data.census.gov/table/CBP2023.CB2300CBP?g=010XX00US&n=713290
5. Kelly, Tim / Stateline. "State lottery ticket sales nearly double to over $100B." 2026. https://stateline.org/2026/04/09/state-lottery-ticket-sales-nearly-double-to-over-100b/
6. National Indian Gaming Commission. "NIGC Announces Record $43.9 Billion in FY 2024 Gross Gaming Revenues" (also the IGRA regulatory framework). 2025. https://www.nigc.gov/nigc-announces-record-43-9-billion-in-fy-2024-gross-gaming-revenues/
7. American Gaming Association. "2024 Commercial Gaming Revenue Reaches $71.9B, Marking Fourth-Straight Year of Record Revenue." 2025. https://www.americangaming.org/2024-commercial-gaming-revenue-reaches-71-9b-marking-fourth-straight-year-of-record-revenue/
8. Accel Entertainment, Inc. "Record Fourth Quarter and Full-Year 2025 Results ($1.3B revenue; ~4,500 locations; ~27,950 terminals; Illinois revenue-share splits)." 2026. https://ir.accelentertainment.com/
9. The Nevada Independent. "Golden Entertainment selling Nevada, Montana slot routes for $322.5M; will focus on taverns, casinos." 2023. https://thenevadaindependent.com/article/golden-entertainment-selling-nevada-montana-slot-routes-for-322-5m-will-focus-on-taverns-casinos
10. Inspired Entertainment, Inc. "Full-Year 2025 Results (Form 10-K; ~$304M revenue; Gaming/Virtual Sports/Interactive/Leisure segments)." 2026. https://www.sec.gov/cgi-bin/browse-edgar?action=getcompany&CIK=0001615063
11. Hoptown Chronicle / Harness Racing Update. "Historical horse racing in Kentucky: ~$9.6B FY2024 handle; Churchill Downs Derby City Gaming commissions >$224M; $55.5M to Thoroughbred Development Fund." 2024. https://hoptownchronicle.org/racing-breeding-shine-in-kentucky-as-sport-dims-across-america
12. Flutter Entertainment plc, Form 10-K (FY2024, U.S. revenue ~$5.8B) and U.S. sports-betting market-share reporting (FanDuel + DraftKings ~78% of GGR; DraftKings ~34%). 2025. https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1635327/000162828025009852/flut-20241231.htm
13. iGaming Business. "Apollo completes $6.3bn acquisition of IGT businesses and Everi." 2025. https://igamingbusiness.com/strategy/ma/apollo-completes-acquisition-igt-businesses-everi/
14. CDC Gaming. "J&J Ventures Gaming / Golden Route Operations (Oaktree-owned; ~26,000 machines; 3,600+ locations; ~30% Illinois VGT market)." 2023. https://cdcgaming.com/nevada-gaming-commission-approves-jj-gaming/
15. CalMatters. "Judge shuts down California tribes' latest bid to crush their casino rivals (SB 549; ~78 licensed cardrooms; case dismissed on federal preemption)." 2025. https://calmatters.org/digital-democracy/2025/10/california-gambling-casinos-cardrooms/
16. Illinois Commission on Government Forecasting and Accountability. "Wagering in Illinois — 2025 Update (VGT net terminal income $3.09B FY2025; 49,000+ terminals; 35% tax; $1.08B to governments)." 2025. https://cgfa.ilga.gov/Upload/2025_Wagering_in_Illinois.pdf
17. iGaming Business. "How 2025 became the year US states turned against sweepstakes casinos" (Montana first ban; Connecticut, New Jersey, New York and others follow). 2025. https://igamingbusiness.com/legal-compliance/2025-sweepstakes-casinos-year-in-review/
18. SCCG Management / Lynchburg News & Advance. "Charitable gaming trends: North American charitable gaming down ~2.4%; Virginia charitable gross sales off >6% amid casino and skill-game competition." 2024–2025. https://sccgmanagement.com/areas-of-expertise/2025/7/2/charitable-gaming-advisory/
19. Supreme Court of the United States. "Murphy v. National Collegiate Athletic Association (striking down PASPA)." 2018. https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/17pdf/16-476_dbfi.pdf
20. U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Legal Counsel. "Whether the Wire Act Applies to Non-Sports Gambling." 2011. https://www.justice.gov/olc/opinion/whether-wire-act-applies-non-sports-gambling
21. Commodity Futures Trading Commission. "CFTC Seeks Public Comment on Proposed Rulemaking Concerning Event Contracts Involving Enumerated Activities." 2026. https://www.cftc.gov/PressRoom/PressReleases/9249-26
22. U.S. Census Bureau. "Nonemployer Statistics (coverage of businesses without paid employment)." 2026. https://www.census.gov/programs-surveys/nonemployer-statistics.html
23. Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN). "FAQs: Casino Recordkeeping, Reporting, and Compliance Program Requirements (BSA/Title 31 for casinos and card clubs)." 2007. https://www.fincen.gov/resources/statutes-regulations/guidance/frequently-asked-questions-casino-recordkeeping-reporting-0