The New Jersey Division of Gaming Enforcement released its September report last week, and online casino numbers continue to impress. The state saw the online casino industry generate $87.6 million in revenue for the month. The September 2020 revenue numbers doubled what the state saw in September 2019, thanks to COVID-19.
The state was $.1 million shy of tying its all-time online revenue numbers set in August this year. Regardless, New Jersey has now seen five straight months of online casino revenue above $80 million.
Golden Nugget, Borgata, and Resorts Digital are the big three in New Jersey as they all saw revenue succeed $20 million for the month. Golden Nugget continues to lead online gaming in New Jersey, with just over $26 million in revenue.
COVID-19 Keeping Atlantic City Buzzing Online
Online gaming is what’s helping Atlantic City the most during the pandemic. They have seen a 113% increase year over year thanks to COVID-19. Even in an unprecedented year, New Jersey gaming as a whole is up 3% from last year. When adding in racinos, the state is up 6.5%.
Something about gambling in a pandemic helps Atlantic City keep bringing in revenue despite only allowing 25% capacity in-person. In-person gaming is down nearly 50% from September 2019. The situation is unfortunate, but online casinos are making all the difference in 2020.
Golden Nugget continues to dominate in the Garden State. They earned over $26 million in September, which is almost $6 million from any other competitor. Although they are down about $1.7 million from its August high, Golden Nugget is still the go-to online casino in New Jersey.
Borgata and Resorts Digital are the next most popular online casinos. Thanks to BetMGM and DraftKings Online Casino, these two have made up 46% of the September revenue share. Both online casinos see revenue up over 100% from last year, with Borgata up 191% from September 2019.
The Hard Rock saw the biggest jump in September even as they ranked fifth out of the seven online casinos in revenue. The online casino saw a 230.4% jump from September 2019, going from 4.6% of the revenue share to 7%. This doesn’t seem like much, but Hard Rock could start becoming a bigger player in the online casino industry, especially if COVID continues to keep people gambling from home.
What About Online Poker?
Even as online casinos remained stable in September, online poker has started to see a decrease as the fall hits. The state only brought in $2.6 million in September compared to the $3 million in August and $4.8 million in July. Although online poker still saw over a 55% increase from September 2019, the numbers are starting to decline this year.
New Jersey is still up 120% year-over-year from September 2019, but the decline in 2020’s numbers concern for the online poker industry.
One thing is live poker returned to Atlantic City this month, which could be part of the reason for the dip in online poker. Borgata Poker Room is opening 30 of 85 casinos on Wednesday with a maximum of seven people per table to help with social distancing.
This could be a way for online poker to see a decline, but with limited capacity, October’s online poker numbers should be on par.
