Atlantic City casinos defied pessimists by reporting their second straight year of annual revenue growth in 2017.

On Friday, the New Jersey Division of Gaming Enforcement reported its casino licensees generated brick-and-mortar gaming revenue of $186.2m in December, a 1.8% decline from the same month last year. The decline was entirely due to gaming tables playing unlucky, as table revenue was off nearly 8% to $53.8m.

However, December’s haul was enough to bring 2017’s total brick-and-mortar gaming win to $2.41b, a very modest but undeniably positive 0.3% gain on 2016’s full-year total. And when you combine the $245.6m earned by the casino’s online gambling partners, the year-on-year total was up 2.2% to $2.66b.

Even better, if you discount the $125.5m generated in 2016 by the Trump Taj Mahal before it shut its doors that October, the same-store year-on-year gain spikes to 7.3%. And AC casinos have gotten better at squeezing out higher profits since the market underwent its contraction from 12 casinos in 2014 to just seven today.

New Jersey’s regulated online gambling market revenue rose by nearly one-quarter in 2017, adding nearly a quarter-billion dollars to Atlantic City casinos’ balance sheets.

Figures released Friday by the New Jersey Division of Gaming Enforcement (DGE) show state-licensed online gambling sites generated revenue of $20.75m in December, the tenth straight month in which the market has exceeded the $20m threshold.

December’s tally was up nearly 13% from December 2016 but failed to eclipse the market’s $21.7m peak last March. As always, the poker vertical acted as a net drag, falling 7.8% year-on-year to $1.94m, while casino revenue shot up 15.6% to $18.8m.

For the year as a whole, total online revenue jumped 24.9% to $245.6m. Here again, casino proved the revenue engine, rising 30.1% to $221.35m, while poker declined 8.5% to $24.25m.

One of Switzerland’s leading brick-and-mortar casino operators posted revenue gains in 2017, despite ongoing competition from internationally licensed online gambling rivals.

This week, Stadtcasino AG’s Grand Casino Baden reported gross gaming revenue of CHF60.4m (US$62.2m) in 2017, a 1.3% improvement over 2016’s figure and the property’s first annual growth since 2012. The venue welcomed 346k guests last year, up 4.4% from the previous year.

Grand Casino Baden CEO Detlef Brose hailed the 2017 results as “a great success” considering “the difficult market conditions” and ongoing construction work on a major traffic hub adjacent to the casino.

Brose credited the 2017 turnaround to the company’s new ‘house of entertainment’ strategy, which includes new gambling products – such as the internally developed blackjack variant Black James – a new slots area, high-quality restaurants, live music performances on weekends and an enhanced player loyalty program.

Swedish mobile gambling specialists LeoVegas have further bolstered their UK market presence by acquiring the online casino operations of Intellectual Property & Software Limited (IPS).

On Friday, LeoVegas announced that it had reached a deal to acquire the IPS assets, which include online gaming brands 21.co.uk, Slotboss, Bet UK and UK Casino. The deal will also see LeoVegas absorb the assets of Alderney-based European Domain Management Ltd (EDM) and Newcastle-based marketing services business Rocket 9 Ltd.

IPS generated revenue of £11.7m in Q4 2017, nearly 50% higher than it reported in Q4 2016. The combined operations of IPS, EDM and Rocket 9 reported adjusted earnings of £3.8m, representing an earnings margin of 32.6%. The companies had a combined payroll of 85 employees.

The deal will cost LeoVegas a total consideration of £65m, which the company will finance from cash and existing loan facilities. The company secured debt financing of €100m last October, when it reached a deal to acquire the operations of UK-facing online casino operator Royal Panda.

Gross revenue of state-run Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corporation (PAGCOR) grew by 7 percent in 2017 on the back of strong performance of the Philippine casino industry.

PAGCOR chair Andrea Domingo announced that the state regulator pocketed “close to PHP60 billion (US$1.19 billion)” in 2017, which was slightly below the target. Nevertheless, the gross revenue last year was higher than the PHP55.06 billion (US$1.09 billion) profit it posted in 2016.

The chunk of PAGCOR’s 2017 gaming revenue came from its 46 casino properties, which raked in PHP22.44 billion (US$444.6 million). On the other hand, PHP19.27 billion (US$382.5 million) of PAGCOR’s income came from licensed casinos’ fees.

Traditional bingo and e-bingo licensees gave PAGCOR a PHP9.45 billion (US$187.58 million), while the state regulator’s share from other gaming licensees such as e-games, poker, junket operations was at PHP5.50 billion (US$109.17 million).

With South Australia starting to feel the crunch of dwindling poker machine spending, it’s only a matter of time before habitual gambling scold Nick Xenophon starts eating his words.

In fact, The Australian reported that Xenophon, who made a name in politics 20 years ago for his “No Pokies” battle cry, has already toned down his anti-gambling rhetoric after South Australia revised its gambling tax revenue forecast by AUD42 million ($33.09 million).

The report noted that Australia’s leading anti-pokies proponent appeared “to have backtracked from his position of wanting to eradicate poker machines” when he instead dangled a new policy that includes “a whole range of measures.”

“Reducing the harm caused by poker machines is ­pretty fundamental, but it would have to be a suite of measures, including more people getting assistance and reducing the number of people getting hurt in the first place, but most people just don’t get help when they have a serious gambling problem,” Xenophon told the news outlet.