New Jersey’s regulated online gambling market continues to set new revenue records as Atlantic City casinos remain closed due to COVID-19, while sports betting continues to suffer from a blank calendar of events.
Figures released Friday by the New Jersey Division of Gaming Enforcement show state-licensed online gambling revenue hitting nearly $86m in the month of May, a 124.1% rise over the same month last year and handily beating the market’s previous record of $80m in April 2020.
As always, the online casino vertical did the heavy lifting, shooting up 122.8% year-on-year to $81.4m. Online poker posted a larger percentage gain, rising 151.2% to $4.5m, although that represented a step back from April’s record $5.15m, proving that even pandemic lockdowns can’t make online poker seem all that interesting for very long.
On a year-to-date basis, the overall online tally is up 88.3% to $337.8m, with casino rising 88.4% to $320.9m and poker up 86.7% to $16.9m.
The Golden Nugget’s undisputed heavyweight champeen online casino managed to eclipse its own April record by around $1.3m with revenue of just over $29m in May. Runner-up Resorts Digital Gaming eclipsed its April result by $1.5m with revenue of $17.66m in May, of which $1.746m came via poker.
The Borgata family of sites ranked third with $16.67m, of which just over $1m came from poker. Caesars Interactive Entertainment slipped to second-best on the poker front with $1.745m, while CIE’s total revenue of $9.4m relegated it to fourth place on the overall chart.
The Tropicana’s casino-only sites had a solid showing in May with $6.7m, while Hard Rock Atlantic City reported $5.4m and Ocean Casino Resort finally cracked the seven-digit barrier with $1.04m.
New Jersey’s sports betting operators generated revenue of $9.9m in May, down more than one-third from the same month last year. With the casinos and racetracks shut, the $117.8m wagered in May was all done online. May 2019’s handle was $319m, of which $263.5m was wagered online.
The Meadowlands racetrack and its FanDuel partner won the month with revenue of $4.23m, while Resorts Digital and its DraftKings partner ranked second with $3.76m. No other operator managed to crack the $1m mark last month, with the Borgata coming closest with $694k.
