New Jersey online casinos had an outstanding May with the fifth month of this year being the second best in the state’s 5-year gaming history!
The gaming industry in the state is not just solid month-on-month and year-on-year, but the growth is on track for $285 million for New Jersey for the end of the year; and a mind-blowing $1 Billion over its short existence.
The figures released by the NJ Division of Gaming Enforcement makes for some fascinating and rather surprising reading.
May’s bottom line figure of $24,302,621 in gaming revenue is split-up as just $1,929,693 of that being on poker, and the remaining $22,372,928 being on other casino revenue.
Poker figures for May were an improvement over the disappointing April figures, but year-on-year, we continue to see a shrinking market share for poker. While online poker was down 8.97%; online casino numbers are up by 18.05%. This is a significant and surprising difference.
Expectations were high for growth in online poker following the introduction of interstate poker with Nevada and Delaware; but for whatever reason, the figures in May do not bear that out. Not only are we not seeing any growth, but effectively it’s 9% down year-on-year. So far, it would appear that any growth on WSOP.com/888 is eating into the numbers of other NJ based businesses.
Looking at the performance of the top 5 operators in the state, Golden Nugget with sub-brands Betfair and SugarHouse continue a huge market lead, with Borgata a distant second. Caesars, Resorts and Tropicana carve up the rest of the market in more or less equal measure.
Golden Nugget had its second best month to date in the state, recording an impressive $8.6 million dollars in revenue for May. That’s now 3 months over the 5 year period for which they have exceeded the $8 million mark. As for competitors – none of them have been able to breach the $5 million mark. This is a truly impressive lead in the market and has a lot to do with the emphasis placed on Golden Nugget online offerings.
Borgata online on its side exceeded the $4.5 million mark for the month, which was a good improvement for them. Perhaps we will see them pulling ahead of the competition significantly in months to come.
The rest of the market share is divided up as follows:
Caesars 16.8%,
Resorts 14.9%
Tropicana 14%
Caesars benefitted from sub-brands WSOP and 888 interstate poker for the month, and are back in the market at over $4 million.
In a time of general market volatility, it’s reassuring to see our industry not just performing solidly, but showing significant signs of growth.
