Online gambling in New Jersey continues to grow from strength to strength. The Garden State’s Division of Gaming Enforcement said this week that the gambling industry set a new record for online gaming revenue in January. Online gambling brought in $14.6 million last month, which was a substantial 26.5% increase year on year. Last January’s numbers showed revenue of $11.6 million.
On the flip side, numbers from the online poker sector continued to drop, with revenue slipping 6.4% to $2.15 million compared to last January, with gains from the online casino sector offsetting these declines with 34.6% growth to around $12.5 million.
The gaming authority recently posted its full year report for 2015, showing that full year online gaming revenue for the 12 months was 21% up to $148.8 million compared to the end of December 2014. Year on year, online poker was down 18% to $23.8 million.
There has been a change in New Jersey’s land casino demographics, with the closure of four establishments during the course of 2014, namely the Trump Plaza, the Showboat, the Revel and the Atlantic Club. As a result, many patrons of these casinos sought alternatives and found them in other Atlantic City casinos, explaining the growth in revenue for many of them.
The only three casinos to show revenues in the red were Bally’s, the Trump Taj Mahal and Caesars, with drops of 6.4%, 16.5% and 6.1% respectively.
Other statistics posted by the New Jersey Division of Gaming Enforcement regarding the performance of land-based casinos included year on year growth for the following:
- Borgata – 7.9%
- Harrah’s – 2.5%
- Tropicana – 5.3%
- Golden Nugget – 24.6%
- Resorts – 16.4%
New Jersey passed laws in 2013 allowing online gambling by residents over the age of 21. The bill, sponsored by Senator Raymond Lesniak, specifies that servers which operate the online casino websites need to be located at Atlantic City based casinos. Original laws of this nature were vetoed by Governor Chris Christie, and Lesniak needed to revise his bill in order to meet the concerns of the governor. The current bill legalizes igaming for a ten year trial period and imposes a 15% tax on the revenue generated. Land-based casinos are taxed at a rate of 8%. New Jersey’s online gambling bill also allows the state’s authorities to sign interstate compacts to increase player bases and bring in additional revenue.
