New Jersey Online Casino Sets Revenue Record In August, Just Shy Of $200M

Online casino operators in New Jersey enjoyed a record $198.4 million in revenue in August, according to figures released Monday by the state Division of Gaming Enforcement.

And if one looks closely at the unwavering pattern of growth for the operators, it seems fair to wonder if that monthly figure will ever fall under $200 million again.

That’s because every month in 2024 has resulted either in just above or just below a 20% rise from the 2023 figures for the same period, and the last four months of 2023 produced four of the five largest revenue figures of the year. The start of football season brings increased online sports betting, and that has historically led to crossover online casino play.

Overall, iCasino revenue is up a robust 22.7% so far in 2024.

Last December’s then-record $180.3 million figure, in fact, has been topped in every single month of 2024. The industry presumably will reach maturity and produce only modest gains or losses at some point — but that time is not yet at hand.

Everybody wins (except maybe the players)

When operators enjoy larger returns, so do the retail casino operators that, effectively serving as silent partners, pocket roughly one-third of that revenue for themselves.

New Jersey taxpayers also are benefiting. The $228.9 million taken in so far from the online casino gaming operators in 2024 is more than $42 million more than the state had collected in the first eight months of 2023.

New Jersey’s online casino industry continues to be a three-operator competition, for the most part. Golden Nugget (aided by deals with FanDuel and BetRivers) led in August with $55 million in revenue, just ahead of Resorts Digital (DraftKings and Mohegan Sun and, now, ESPN Bet) at $51 million and Borgata (including partner BetMGM) at $45.8 million.

It is also worth noting that while Tropicana was a distant fourth at $18.9 million, that is almost triple its revenue number for August 2023.

The top-four pecking order is the same for 2024 overall, but Borgata is up only 4.6% this year — and in this growing industry, that has it falling further behind Golden Nugget and Resorts.

Sports betting craters, B&M ticks up

Last month wasn’t nearly so rosy for sportsbooks in New Jersey, as a revenue figure of $62.7 million was down a whopping 34% from 12 months earlier. Even with that drop, though, sportsbook revenue in 2024 has risen nearly 20% in the first eight months combined.

The biggest revenue falloff by far in August was by Resorts Digital, with a staggering slide from $56.9 million to $18.2 million. In fact, that accounts for the entire drop for the industry in August. The Meadowlands Racetrack — with FanDuel as a key mobile sports betting partner and operator of the track’s retail sportsbook — was able to tread water from $25.7 million in August 2023 to $25 million last month.

Total August betting handle fell a few ticks shy of $700 million, compared to $725.9 million in August 2023. A weak return for normally lucrative (for the sportsbooks, that is) parlay wagers dropped margins for the year on those multi-tiered bets from 19.5% to 18.9%.

The venerable Freehold Raceway — with a lineage as the nation’s oldest racetrack dating back to the mid 19th century — surrendered its sports betting license on July 31, the new monthly report declared. That paved the way for ESPN Bet to transfer its alliance over to Resorts Digital’s more robust sports betting platform.

Atlantic City’s nine casinos reaped a modest 4.9% year-over-year increase in revenue to $294 million last month. For the year, the casinos have taken in $1.922 billion, after collecting a virtually identical $1.925 billion for the same period in 2023. For the first eight months of 2019 — before the COVID-19 pandemic rocked the industry in 2020 — this figure was $1.83 billion. So virtually all of the revenue growth for the casinos in the past five years has come from its share of the booming online casino gaming industry.

Borgata, at $502 million in 2024, is coasting to yet another victory in the city’s annual brick-and-mortar casino revenue competition. Hard Rock ($338.1 million) and Ocean ($267.5 million) — which opened on the same day in June 2018 — seem to be cementing their status as the top annual runners-up.

Resorts ($109.1 million) — the city’s first casino in 1978 — Golden Nugget ($103.7 million), and Bally’s ($100.5 million) are trying to avoid finishing last for the calendar year after Golden Nugget suffered that fate in 2023.