New Jersey’s online gambling market set yet another monthly revenue record in November despite online poker turning in its all-time worst showing.
Figures released Thursday by the New Jersey Division of Gaming Enforcement show the state’s online casino and poker licensees generated combined revenue of $49.1m in November, a whopping 82.4% better than the same month last year and nearly $4m better than the previous record set this October.
The online casino vertical had another stellar month, rising 87.7% year-on-year to $27.64m, bringing its year-to-date total to $414.17m, a nearly two-thirds increase from the first 11 months of 2018. Online poker stunk out the joint, falling 4.4% in November to $1.49m, a new record low for the market. Online poker’s year-to-date revenue is down 2.2% to $19.2m.
Assuming this torrid pace continues, New Jersey’s regulated online market is on track for full-year revenue north of $480m, well ahead of the $298.7m the market earned in 2018.
In what is now a familiar refrain, the Golden Nugget’s online casino was smashing records like Tipper Gore (look her up, kids), posting revenue of $18.9m in November, more than doubling its returns from November 2018 and more than $2.2m better than its previous record set in October 2019. The Nugget’s online revenue also easily surpassed its brick-and-mortar casino win ($17.06m) for the second straight month.
Runner-up Resorts Digital Gaming – whose operations include not only the Resorts Casino Hotel’s online casino but also The Stars Group (TSG) and DraftKings – set its own property record with just under $11m, more than triple the sum it earned in November 2018. Of this sum, $480k came via TSG’s PokerStars New Jersey site.
Also setting a property record (stop us if you find this repetitive) was the Borgata family of sites with $8.22m, up 71.4% year-on-year and around $500k higher than October 2019. Nearly $394k of November’s take came via PartyPoker.
As usual, Caesars Interactive New Jersey scored the highest poker total ($619k) but its overall online revenue was only $4.6m – a decent 17.2% year-on-year rise but only $350k higher than October.
The rest of the casino-only sites finished as follows: Tropicana ($3.67m, +8.2%), Hard Rock Atlantic City ($2.17m, +65%) and Ocean Casino Resort ($550k, -24.9%). This is the second straight month in which OCR has been the lone online decliner, a black mark that continues to spoil the property’s land-based gaming rebirth over the past few months.
Apart from merely fattening the bottom lines of a few casino operators, a new report from iDEA Growth (the iDevelopment and Economic Association) claimed that New Jersey’s online gambling market has created 6,552 jobs since its 2013 launch, including 1,851 new jobs just in 2018. These jobs paid a total of $401m in wages since 2013, while the state has reaped $259.3m in taxes from its online market.
