Signaling the vibrancy of its online gaming industry, New Jersey was able to bank its biggest online “win” rate in its history in the month of March 2018.
Over the 31 days of March, New Jersey’s citizens seemed to flock to the offerings from the casino operations in the state. For the month, the five online operations in the state – the Borgata’s poker and casino sites, Caesars’ poker and casino sites, Resorts’ poker and casino sites and the individual casino operations of the Golden Nugget and the Tropicana – pulled in a record $25.6 million. That was by far the biggest month in the history of the Garden State’s online gaming industry, beating its previous best by almost $4 million (the previous record was $21.7 million in March 2017).
Breaking down the numbers from March, it was casino gaming that once again carried the online industry. Of that $25.6 million, $23.6 million came from the virtual slots, table games and other offerings by the online casinos. Online poker brought in almost $2 million ($1.996 million) on its own accord, its best performance since August 2017, but it is still having troubles bringing in traffic.
It is thought that the new compact with Delaware and Nevada will assist New Jersey with their numbers regarding online poker, but that is difficult to see. First, the compact is only for two rooms that exist in the Jersey market – WSOP.com and 888Poker.com. The other online poker sites in New Jersey – Borgata/partypoker and Resorts/PokerStars – are not licensed for operations in either Delaware or Nevada, meaning they cannot participate in the new compact. Also problematic is that people who want to participate in the new compacted action will have to download new software and it may be a few months before we see if the new compact is helping the New Jersey industry.
For the poker industry, it was Resorts/PokerStars that was the leader of the pack. Bringing in a neat $778,949 for the month, they showed a slight increase over their February 2018 numbers ($767,600). Making a nice jump was Borgata/party, who brought in $622,620 (compared to $590,036 in February), while Caesars pulled up the last place slot with $564,797 in revenues. Caesars was also the only online poker operation who showed a decline from February to March ($605,315 in February 2018).
On the casino front, the Golden Nugget was the big winner. In fact, the Golden Nugget vastly outpaced their opposition in drawing in $8.65 million for the month of March. This handily beat their competitors at the Borgata, who brought in $3.96 million. Caesars attempted to keep pace with the Borgata, pulling in a $3.84 million “win,” while the Tropicana’s online casino popped into the mix with $3.69 million in revenues. Resorts earned the least of the five operations, taking in “only” $3.455 million from its online casino operations.
In existence for just over four years (November 2013), the state’s online gaming (casino and poker) industry has been growing consistently since its inception. In its first full month, the New Jersey online gaming industry drew in over $7.3 million, with $2.8 million of that coming from online poker. In each year since then, the numbers have only increased, although the disparity between casino gaming and poker has grown significantly.
In 2014, the New Jersey online gaming industry pulled in about $125 million, far short of what then-Governor Chris Christie estimated, but still a good start for what was, at that point, an industry in its infancy. 2015 saw those revenues tick upwards to $148 million and 2016 was even better, falling just short of $200 million with its $196.7 million. 2017, of course, blew past 2016 in bringing in $245.6 million.
The explosion in online casino gaming has been driven by the casino side and not online poker, however. In fact, online poker has lost ground over the four years of the New Jersey industry, with online casino gaming increasing by 15.6% from 2016 to 2017 to offset the losses of online poker (down 7.82% in year-to-year comparison). With two new casinos joining in in the coming year – the Hard Rock Atlantic City and Ocean Resort Casino – it is highly likely that there will be more records fall over the next few months. Whether poker is a part of those records remains to be seen.