New Jersey’s regulated online gambling market earned revenue of $10.4m in February, up $100k over January‘s take despite another seven-figure online casino jackpot.
Notwithstanding that $1.5m jackpot at Betfair’s online casino last month, the casino vertical rose 16.1% year-on-year to $8.35m. The online poker vertical persisted in its tilting ways, falling 34.2% year-on-year to $2.05m, down nearly 11% from January’s take.
The Borgata/Bwin.party/Pala Interactive combo continued its market domination, capturing $3.7m of the overall revenue pie. The casino vertical accounted for $2.6m (+100k), while poker added $1.1m (-$180k).
Caesars Interactive Entertainment sites, including 888.com, earned $2.5m, with nearly $1.6m from casino and $942k from poker. CIE’s overall revenue was down $150k from January, with casino down $100k and poker off by $50k.
The Tropicana’s casino-only site reported $2.62m in revenue. essentially unchanged from January. This month saw the Tropicana launch the first real-money online bingo offering in the United States, a 90-ball game promising $90k in bonus cash each month. Gamesys, which powers the Trop’s platform, is a noted player in UK online bingo circles, having built up Jackpotjoy into a major player before selling the brand to Intertain last month.
The Golden Nugget’s casino-only site earned just under $1.5m, down by a million from January’s figure. But the Nugget’s operations include BetfairCasino.com, so February’s number would have risen by about $500k were it not for that aforementioned jackpot.
Last month saw the first online contributions from Resorts Casino Hotel, which launched its SNG Interactive-powered online casino in February’s final week. Resorts reported just under $51k in revenue in its few days of operation.
Absent that $1.5m jackpot, New Jersey could have tied its March 2014 revenue peak of $11.9m. The strength of the casino vertical is underscored by the fact that last March’s total included $1.2m more poker revenue than February 2015.
The poker vertical’s inability to arrest its decline will give further pause to any state legislatures currently pondering the introduction of poker-only online legislation (maybe even in California, not that they require further reasons to delay). Without casino, poker is like a Reese’s Peanut Butter cup minus the chocolate: still edible, but hardly worth crossing the street for.
