New Jersey’s online gambling market failed to set a new revenue record in February, despite online poker posting an extremely rare year-on-year improvement.
Figures released Wednesday by the New Jersey Division of Gaming Enforcement (DGE) show the state’s licensed online gambling operators generated revenue of $31.75m in February, a 44.4% improvement over the same month last year but nearly $2m below January 2019’s record haul. It’s worth noting that February had three less days in which to generate revenue than January.
The state’s online casino licensees had a solid month, with revenue up 48.1% to $29.94m, although January’s online casino year-on-year percentage gain was a more robust 58.5%.
Online poker reported revenue of $1.8m last month, a modest year-on-year gain of 2.1%, but the market’s poker vertical has been on a seemingly unending downward spiral for years, making February’s improvement akin to spotting Chris Christie riding a unicorn down Atlantic City’s boardwalk.
The Golden Nugget retained its place atop the online gambling revenue chart with $10.7m, although this was down nearly $1.5m from January. The decline came despite the early February launch of Churchill Downs Inc’s BetAmerica site, which piggybacks on the Nugget’s online permit.
Resorts Digital Gaming jumped into the revenue runner-up position with a devilish $6.66m — a nearly $3m year-on-year improvement — of which $564k came via poker. Resorts appears to be enjoying a lift from DraftKings’ online casino, which launched last December but has continued to expand its product offering and appears to be enjoying some serious cross-sell from DraftKings’ legions of online sports bettors.
The Borgata’s family of sites ranked third with $4.5m, of which nearly $459k came via its three poker sites. Caesars Interactive Entertainment wasn’t far back with nearly $4.3m, of which $788k came via poker (up from $725k in January).
As for the rest of the market’s casino-only sites, the Tropicana led the way with $3.45m, followed by Hard Rock Atlantic City’s $1.67m, a new high-water mark for the property. The Ocean Resort Casino brought up the rear with a disappointing $483k, possibly reflecting concerns over the future of the property, which recently underwent an ownership change amid media reports of eight-figure financial losses.
