Pa. and NJ Casinos Generate $5M Poker Revenues in July

Both Pennsylvania and New Jersey’s poker industries generated around $5 million each during the month of July, with both state’s reporting flat revenues compared to the same month last year. While Pennsylvania’s figure was derived solely from its live poker rooms, in the case of New Jersey, however, that amount was split roughly $3 million from live poker, and $2 million from the Internet.
Leading Pennsylvania’s poker market in July was the Parx Casino in Philadelphia which accounted for a whopping $1.37 million of the state’s overall total. By contrast, the Borgata in Atlantic City generated $1.97 million in poker revenues last month, with its nearest rival Bally’s a long way back on just $309,000.
Pennsylvania and New Jersey represent the second and third largest casino markets in the country respectively, and by way of comparison the USA’s biggest market, Nevada, generated $16.1 million from its 65 poker rooms in June, although much of that tally was thanks to the World Series of Poker. Up until June, however, most of Nevada’s monthly poker revenues in 2016 have been in the $8.57 million (April) to $9.5 million (January) range.
Meanwhile, New Jersey’s three casinos with online poker operations, namely Borgata, Caesars and Resorts, generated revenues of $2,012,105 in July, representing a 6.7% improvement versus the same month in 2015.
PokerStars’ entry into the Garden State initially helped to increase the size of its market by one-third with traffic rising to around 430 players over a 7-day period. Since April, however, traffic to New Jersey site’s have fallen back to pre-PokerStars levels, and according to PokerScout, WSOP/888 is currently showing 120 cash game players, followed by PokerStars with 110 players, and then Party Borgata with just 65 cash game players.
Consequently, the New Jersey Division of Gaming Enforcement (NJDGE) has continued to search for new ways to boost its sluggish poker market, and has even proposed sharing its players with those based in the UK, a market of around 63 million people. As NJDGE Director David Rebuck subsequently explained:
“With nine million people in New Jersey, and more than 63 million in the United Kingdom, this would mean a massive increase in liquidity for New Jersey operators. Even when you discount children and non-gamblers, it gives us access to a market that is very familiar with online gaming. That number is one-fifth of the total U.S. population.”