Another New Jersey iCasino Revenue Record — This Time Exceeding Atlantic City’s Retail Casinos
October total gaming revenue in the Garden State came in at $499.8 million, up 2.6% over October 2023
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For the third month in a row, New Jersey’s legal online casino operators have recorded a new state record for revenue, the New Jersey Division of Gaming Enforcement reported Monday afternoon. And this time, the haul from that form of online gambling exceeded the total in-person gaming revenue scooped by the nine hotel-casino properties in Atlantic City.
The internet gaming win for October totaled $213.6 million, breaking September’s short-lived record of $208.1 million and improving on October 2023’s $166.8 million by 28.1%. Retail casino revenue, meanwhile continued to decline, dropping 8.5% from October 2023’s $228.1 million to $208.7 — which means retail casino revenue was 2.3% lower than iCasino revenue for the month.
The times, they have a-changed.
All forms of gambling revenue combined, including sports wagering, came up just shy of the half-billion-dollar mark, adding up to $499.8 million for October, a 2.6% rise year-over-year from the October 2023 figure of $487.1 million. So the rising tide of online casino may not be lifting all proverbial boats, but it is making the water level a touch higher.
The state of New Jersey collected just over $55 million in total gaming taxes for October.
Behind the numbers
Further breaking down the revenue numbers, we see retail casino win was divided into $159.9 million from slots and $48.8 million from table games. And among the $213.6 million in win collected by the state’s online sites, $2.35 million came from peer-to-peer poker, while the rest — nearly 99% of the revenue — came from house-banked games including tables and slots.
Sports betting revenue for the month was $77.4 million, a 16% decline from $92.3 million a year ago. The wagering handle, however, was strong, at $1.13 billion. The bettors simply did a bit better in October than in a typical month, limiting the sportsbooks to a 6.8% hold. (The previous month, for example, hold was 9.1%.)
Now that the DGE separates the operators into their individual skins, we can see that seven online sportsbooks in the state came in over the $1 million mark in October revenue:
- FanDuel: $34.83 million
- DraftKings: $22.23 million
- BetMGM: $7.26 million
- bet365: $3.66 million
- Caesars: $3.15 million
- BetFanatics: $1.64 million
- ESPN Bet: $1.58 million
FanDuel and DraftKings combined for 86.6% of all sports betting revenue in the state, a remarkable display of dominance nearly 6½ years after they launched.
FanDuel tops online casino rankings, too
The online casino rankings are slightly less lopsided in favor of the big two, but reveal a state in which every operator with both sports betting and online casino is making more money from the latter. Here’s the top 10:
- FanDuel: $48.28 million
- DraftKings: $45.62 million
- BetMGM: $25.18 million
- Borgata: $16.16 million
- Caesars Palace: $14.64 million
- Golden Nugget: $10.52 million
- Hard Rock Bet: $10.35 million
- BetRivers: $6.92 million
- BallyCasino: $4.82 million
- BetFanatics: $3.72 million
ESPN Bet’s online casino is just outside the top 10, with revenue of $3.18 million.
On the land-based side of things, Borgata was no. 1 in Atlantic City, as usual, with $53.4 million in gaming revenue, but it was one of seven casinos that dipped from the previous October. The only two properties on a year-over-year upswing were Caesars and Tropicana, located near each other on the southern end of the Boardwalk.