New Jersey’s sports betting operators nearly tripled their revenue in January as wagering handle came in well over a half-billion dollars.
Figures released Wednesday by the New Jersey Division of Gaming Enforcement show the state’s licensed online and land-based sportsbook operators generated revenue of $53.56m in January, a 185.2% improvement over the same month last year and over $7m higher than the previous record of $46.4m set last October.
Betting handle totaled $540.1m, a 40% rise over January 2019 although below the state’s previous high-water mark of $562.7m set last November. January’s digital handle hit $471.1m, representing 87.2% of the total, a modest dip from December’s 87.6% digital share.
Some of January’s handle undoubtedly reflected bettors getting in their wagers on the 2020 Super Bowl, which was played on February 2 and garnered handle of $54.2m (and a net loss of $4.3m). The DGE’s ‘completed events’ handle for January stood at $527.1m while completed event revenue was $44m.
The combo of the Meadowlands racetrack, Flutter Entertainment’s FanDuel brand and Aussie operator Pointsbet continued to crush their competition in January, notching betting revenue of just under $26.5m — $11.6m better than their previous high – of which all but $4.27m came via digital channels.
Resorts Digital Gaming, whose operations include DraftKings and The Stars Group’s betting business, ranked a distant second with $15.9m, although this was up nearly $6.6m from December’s result. The Resorts Casino Hotel’s retail betting added $163k to this total.
Things tapered off dramatically from that point, with third-place finisher Monmouth Park and its William Hill partner combining for nearly $3.7m, of which $884k came via land-based operations. The Borgata casino and its BetMGM partner placed fourth with just under $3.2m and the Ocean Resort Casino rounded out the top-five with $2.34m, all but $377k of which came online.
No other operator topped the seven-figure revenue mark in January, with Bally’s closest at $656k, followed by the Golden Nugget ($548k), Hard Rock Atlantic City ($336k), the Tropicana ($175k) and Harrah’s ($107k).
New Jersey’s betting operators broke some new ground last year with their first ever approved wagers on the Academy Awards. The DGE said this year’s Oscar betting handle totaled just over $380k, down almost half from 2019’s nearly $748k. The books kept only around $40k of this year’s Oscar handle.
