After a year, slots look like a big winner for Pa.

HARRISBURG - After one year of slot-machine gambling, casino revenues in Pennsylvania are considered strong and are generating plenty of cross-border envy.

The slots revenues, which have exceeded daily per-machine averages elsewhere in the Northeast, are particularly impressive considering that most of Pennsylvania's casinos are in temporary facilities or new establishments that are being expanded, one analyst said.

"I'd say they've done this without breaking much of a sweat," said Joseph Weinert, editor of the Atlantic City-based Gaming Industry Observer.

Mohegan Sun at Pocono Downs debuted Nov. 14, 2006, the first of six slots parlors now open in Pennsylvania. Through Nov. 4, gamblers at the six facilities had wagered more than $10 billion - or about $830 for every man, woman and child in Pennsylvania.

Nearly $900 million was lost by gamblers and was split between the casinos and the state, which then routes the money into tax cuts, civic-development projects, local-government aid and the horse-racing industry.

Ultimately, gross revenues of about $3 billion a year would be necessary to meet revenue predictions by Gov. Rendell and other supporters of the 2004 law that legalized slot machines in the state. Rendell and the supporters said the casinos would raise about $1.6 billion a year for the state.

The draw of Pennsylvania's slots is being felt in other states.

Gross revenues at the 11 casinos in Atlantic City are almost 2 percent behind last year at this time. Horse-racing advocates from Massachusetts to Maryland point to the newly swollen purses at Pennsylvania's tracks as a reason their states should follow suit.

"Most of the farms in Maryland that had substantial boarding populations . . . have lost quite a bit of business," said Cricket Goodall, the executive director of the Maryland Horse Breeders Association. "In some cases, farms have actually relocated."

New competition, however, is coming.

Maryland legislators could give final approval this week to a bill setting up a November 2008 referendum on legalizing slot machines. In March, West Virginia legalized table games in an effort to protect slots revenues at its racetracks. And New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer agreed to let the Mohawk Indian tribe build a casino in the Catskill Mountains, 20 miles from the Pennsylvania border.

Calls already are being heard in Pennsylvania to legalize table games.

It is difficult to predict how much money the state's slots parlors will bring in during the next 12 months.

Current gross revenues of about $25 million per week translate to $1.3 billion annually. However, Weinert cautioned that such a projection was shaky because of numerous factors, such as the weather.

A seventh slots parlor, Hollywood Casino at Penn National racetrack near Harrisburg, is scheduled to open in February. Four more casinos are licensed to be built in Philadelphia, Pittsburgh and Bethlehem.