Pennsylvania, where new casinos are still opening and legalized slots play is still a novelty, added more than 3,200 gambling-related jobs and yielded big revenue increases in 2009, a year in which casino revenues declined nationally by more than 5 percent.

The statistics were contained in the American Gaming Association's annual industry report, released Thursday. Pennsylvania's revenues increased by almost 22 percent, aided by the 2009 opening of Rivers Casino on the North Shore and the Sands Casino Resort in Bethlehem.

"I don't think there is any way to sugarcoat it. The past year was tough," AGA CEO Frank Fahrenkopf said during a conference call Thursday. Nationally, commercial casinos took in $30.74 billion in 2009, down nearly $1.8 billion from 2008. It's the second straight year of declining casino revenues nationally, and as a result, the number of people employed in the industry dropped by almost 30,000, or 8.1 percent.

Nevada's casinos saw 2009 revenues decline by 10.4 percent from 2008 numbers, while Pennsylvania's neighbors in Atlantic City, N.J., performed even worse, with a 13.3 percent decline.

Pennsylvania, with the addition of Rivers Casino and the Sands, now has nine casinos operating in the state, five of them at or near the Pennsylvania-New Jersey border.

Western Pennsylvania still is in the running for two more casinos - one, a proposed racetrack casino in Lawrence County; the other, a smaller "resort" casino at Nemacolin Woodlands Resort in Fayette County.

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