2020 was a year to forget for the New Jersey land-based casino industry due to the forced closures brought on as a result of the coronavirus pandemic. However, there’s a growing feeling that the Garden State could bounce back stronger than before.
While the casinos and resorts on America’s east coast had their shutters down, NJ online casino sites continued to thrive, and the trend has carried on as the world begins to open up again and restrictions are lifted.
Month-on-month growth
Looking at the New Jersey gambling industry as a whole, the numbers it is putting up are rather impressive. However, we must consider that all land-based casinos were closed for more than three months (March 16 – July 2) the previous year. On top of that, virtually every sports event was canceled or postponed as the world went into lockdown. With that in mind, it does offer some perspective for the latest figures.
June 2021, the Garden State recorded gambling revenues of $392.8m, which was a massive 302.7% increase from the same month in 2020. The huge leap is not surprising, but these were the highest recorded figures for June since official revenue reporting began. Moreover, the $392.8m was a 4.9% increase on the previous month – signaling a strong recovery.
In July, the figures rose again. The total revenue hit $450.6m, which marked a 14.7% hike from June’s totals. One of the things that helped boost July’s revenues was the start of the Olympic Games in Tokyo, which is one of the largest global betting events you’ll find.
Online gambling revenue on the up
Dissecting the total revenues to focus solely on the online sector, and we can see that it is flourishing (for the most part) too. Figures released for June noted that $107.1m was generated from internet gaming revenue. This marked a 26.1% increase from the previous year; however, peer-to-peer games like poker, which were once the bedrock of online gambling, dropped 37.5% based on the year-on-year numbers.
July became a record-breaking month as another 10.1% rise from June took the total internet revenue to $118.7m. This became the highest total since New Jersey embraced online gambling.
$1 billion is on the cards
The numbers don’t lie, and many industry experts believe that New Jersey will become the first US state to hit $1bn in annual online gambling revenue.
This is partly because of the growing online sports betting vertical. Regulated sportsbooks in New Jersey accepted $664.7m in wagers throughout the month of August, which was an increase of 15% on the $578.7m in accepted bets for July 2021. Overall, the data reveals that a colossal $6.1bn has been wagered in New Jersey in 2021 (up to the end of August), which is more than the whole of 2020 (which took $6.0bn in bets).
With the Garden State’s online casinos collectively generating $80m plus in revenue month after month, and now with the growth of sports betting, it’s predicted that monthly records will continue to fall. For six straight months, New Jersey online gambling revenues have topped $100m. The year-to-date total (up to the end of August) stands at $866.1m, and we still have four months remaining.
The current annual revenue record for online gambling, which was set last year, is $970.4m. Current trends show that the number will be beaten by the end of September, with October most likely being the month when 1bn is reached. There appears nothing that will stop New Jersey from smashing all records in 2021 for its online gambling revenues, but how long will this boom last?
The stiffest test that New Jersey’s online casinos and sportsbooks will face in the coming years is from the ever-increasing competition from neighboring states. As more areas legalize online sports wagering and casino gambling, it naturally reduces the need to visit the Garden State to get in on the action. For the operators, it doesn’t really matter. Companies such as DraftKings, BetMGM, and Flutter Entertainment’s FanDuel are licensed in multiple states, so they still reap their rewards. The coffers for each state may suffer a slight hit, however.
Conclusion
We cannot be certain at the moment if these increased revenues across the board are nothing more than a short-term fad. Perhaps the events of 2021 are artificially driving up these numbers. People wanting to go out and do the things they enjoy or even try something new. Furthermore, a lot of cheap stimulus money was printed in 2020 to boost the economy. No doubt some of that ended up being gambled in NJ too.
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