New Jersey’s Online Gambling Celebrate Its 4th Birthday with Eighth Straight Month of $20+ Million

As New Jersey approaches its fourth year since introducing online gambling, the state has a lot of reasons to celebrate, with the two biggest reasons being its 8th consecutive month of $20+ million in online revenue and a historic milestone of peaking above $200 million for the first time ever, and that’s with two months left of 2017.

Both online casinos and online poker sites in NJ generated a combined revenue of $20.6m in the month of October, while at the same time adding to the year-to-date total to a historic high of $204.2m that has already eclipsed the previous record of $196.7m set in 2016 with two months to spare.

“Topping 2016’s revenue tally two months before the end of the year is the clearest signal yet that demand for the legal online gambling industry’s products has not yet peaked,” said PlayNJ.com lead analyst Steve Ruddock.

The impressive performance from the online gambling sector is one of the primary reasons why NJ gambling industry as a whole has been on the incline. This is especially true in the case of Atlantic City where it had been in somewhat of a slump over the last few years where it has seen five of its 12 land-based casinos closed down.

Year-Over-Year Progress

The year-over-year growth of the state’s young internet gambling industry has been increasing steadily since it was first launched in Nov 26th of 2013. Below are the figures of the previous years:

• 2013 Nov 26^th to end of year – $8.4m
• 2014 – $122.9m (1,363 percent increase from previous year)
• 2015 – $148.9m (21 percent increase from previous year)
• 2016 – $196.7m (32 percent increase from previous year)
• 2017 – $248m projected (26 percent increase from previous year)

Overall Revenue Since Launch

In total, these are the figures generated since online gambling was legalized and regulated in New Jersey:

• NJ online casinos lifetime gross revenue – $682.6m
• NJ online casino games – accounts for 85 percent of the total at $577.96m
• NJ online poker – accounts for 15 percent of the total at $103.1m
• NJ online gambling has added $119.3m in taxes to the state coffers.

Online Poker Expected to Bounce Back

Although online gambling revenue has been impressive, majority of it came from the online casino vertical which accounted for $18.63m of October’s revenue, a 30.5 percent y-o-y increase from the same month in the previous year, while online poker only contributed $1.93m to October’s revenue, down 19 percent from the $2.39m in Oct 2016.

Thankfully, this downward trend should only be temporary as NJ recently signed a compact with Nevada and Delaware to share its online poker player pool, meaning that the state will then have access to three times as many poker players.

Additionally, with Pennsylvania recently becoming the 4th state to legalize online poker, that alone should breathe new life back into the online poker industry.

“The interstate compact between Nevada, Delaware, and New Jersey will serve to stabilize and grow the online poker market in all three states,” Ruddock said. “Throw Pennsylvania into the mix, and the U.S. online poker market is poised to double in size by the end of 2018.”