New Jersey’s regulated online gambling market closed out 2018 by blowing past old revenue records for both the month of December and the year as a whole.
Figures released Monday by the New Jersey Division of Gaming Enforcement (DGE) show the state’s licensed online gambling operators generated combined online casino and poker revenue of just over $29m in December 2018, a nearly 40% increase from the same month last year.
December’s online total was also $2m higher than the market’s previous monthly best, which was set last November. As always, December’s online gains were driven by the casino vertical, which shot up nearly 45% to $27.2m. The poker vertical rebounded somewhat from its record low performance the previous month, but its $1.76m was still down nearly 9% year-on-year.
December’s result helped drive the 2018 online revenue total to $298.7m, up 21.6% from 2017’s total and another new record high for the state. The online casino vertical improved by more than one-quarter to $277.3m in 2018, while poker fell 11.8% to $21.4m (representing just 7.1% of the overall figure).
The Golden Nugget’s family of online casino-only sites were also in record-shattering mode, reporting revenue of just under $10.2m, handily beating the previous monthly best of $9.67m in October 2018 and marking the first time any state-licensed online operator has crashed through the $10m ceiling. The Nugget’s 2018 revenue total hit a hefty $104.85m, a 52.6% improvement on 2017’s result.
The Borgata’s online sites brought in $5.05m in December, of which $441k came via poker. The Borgata sites’ annual total hit $54.3m, an 11.5% improvement over 2017’s $48.7m.
Caesars Interactive Entertainment (CIE) brought in $4.44m, with $729k from poker. CIE’s annual haul hit $45.6m, roughly $2.6m higher year-on-year. Resorts Digital Gaming brought in $4.35m in December, $594k from poker, bringing its annual total to $45.3m, around $2.3m better than 2017.
The Tropicana led the remaining casino-only sites with $3.2m in December, a modest decline from the same month last year, while its annual result of $41m was roughly $1.6m below 2017’s number. The two 2018 newcomers had a mixed result, as Hard Rock Atlantic City reported December revenue of $1.32m (flat from November) while Ocean Resort Casino claimed $479k (down from $732k).
