New Jersey online poker sets revenue record in April

The COVID-19 pandemic continues to be a boom for the New Jersey online poker industry, as they reported record revenues for the month of April.

April revenues were expected to be massive following a record-setting month in March. Before the pandemic shuttered casinos and poker rooms in Atlantic City and drove all poker players inside, New Jersey averaged between $1.4 and $2 million per month in online poker revenue.

In March, the first month of the pandemic, they blew that out of the water with just over $3.6 million. At the time that was a new record, topping the previous monthly best of $3.4 million set in January 2014.

The record was short lived as online poker sites in New Jersey reported $5.1 million in revenue during April. That exact number was $5,148,373. That’s up 42 percent from the previous record haul reported in March.

Leading the way in New Jersey online poker revenue was PokerStars NJ with $2,066,293. That was the first time ever that a single New Jersey online poker operator has brought in $2 million during a single month. PokerStars surge in revenue was helped by their annual NJSCOOP which set records for tournaments sign ups in April.

The other two online poker sites in New Jersey also posted strong revenue numbers with WSOP.com reporting $1,862,004 and partypoker reporting $1,220,076. They also ran successful series in April with WSOP.com running the Spring Online Championship and partypoker debuting the Spring Poker Open.

The revenue gains in online poker were also seen in other online gambling as well. The overall reported revenue for online gambling in New Jersey in April was an all-time high $79,959,826. To see how incredible that record total really was, just compare it to the same time period a year earlier. In April 2019 the reported revenue for all online gambling in New Jersey was $36,582,934. That’s a 118 percent rise in 2020.

It will be interesting to see what happens to these revenue numbers when casinos and poker rooms begin to reopen. They likely won’t stay as high, but they could be higher than they were before the pandemic if some poker players grow accustom to the convenience factor of online poker.