New Jersey Online Gambling Up 15% To $11.9m In March

The New Jersey state Division of Gaming Enforcement has released its casino results for March, revealing a 7% fall in revenues to $221 million. The state’s six casinos holding online gambling licensees, however, reported a 15.2% increase in revenues to $11.9 million, compared to the $10.3 million taken in the previous month. Taken together, New Jersey’s gambling revenues fell by 2% overall compared to March 2013.
Breaking the figures down further, The Garden State’s regulated online casino market generated $1.5 million more revenues in March at $8.6 million compared to the previous month, while online poker was mostly flat at $3.2 million compared to $3.1 million for February.
Leading New Jersey’s nascent igaming market is the Borgata Hotel Casino & Spa (Party Poker), which generated $4.4 million in revenues for March, equivalent to 37% of the market. Commenting on its impressive monthly tally, Boyd Gaming CEO Keith Smith, said:
“Borgata has been New Jersey’s land-based gaming leader for more than a decade, and is cementing its position as the state’s online gaming leader as well. We continue to see solid growth in online casino gaming, and are working to further strengthen our poker business.”
Second biggest market leader in March was Caesars Interactive (888) with around $3.7 million in revenues, followed by Tropicana Atlantic City Casino in third, up a significant 41% to $1.9 million compared to  February. Meanwhile, Trump Taj Mahal (Ultimate Gaming) recorded $682,639 in revenues; Golden Nugget took $677,746, and Trump Plaza (Betfair) $509,556.
Originally when New Jersey was considering online gambling legislation, igaming revenues were being touted as a potential cure for the state’s declining land-based gambling industry. Five months on, however, and the results are shaping up to be but a drop in the ocean compared to gambling revenues overall, and as Macquarie Capital Inc. analysts Chad Beynon and Jeremy Luskin, explain:
“Even as geolocation issues have been mostly resolved and platforms are more built out, we still are not seeing the demand necessary to make us believe this will be a meaningful part of the [profit and loss] of regional gaming operators.”