Online Casino Revenue in NJ Continues to Boom, Overall Revenue Slumps
Online revenue from regulated New Jersey operators once again grew in August; however, land-based casinos in Atlantic City slumped at a bigger rate, resulting in a declining month overall when compared to one year ago.
According to the August 2016 Gaming Revenue Results financial report released by the New Jersey Division of Gaming Enforcement, total casino revenue in the Garden State declined by 6.9 percent from $258.6 million in August 2015 to $245.9 million in August 2016. This marks three of the four past months with a decline in total revenue. July was an exception. Revenue increased by 6.9 percent in August of the past year.
Total casinos revenues decreased by an even sharper 10.7 percent when compared to the $275.3 million reported in July.
Thanks to a strong performance earlier in 2016, year-to-date revenue tells a different story with an overall increase of two percent from $1.733 billion in the first eight months of 2015 to $1.768 billion in the same period this year.
Land-Based Casinos Slump
For the fourth straight month, land-based casinos slumped. Revenue from land-based casino operations in Atlantic City declined by 6.7 percent from $246.4 million in August 2015 to $229.8 million in August 2016. This also represents a bigger 10.9 percent reduction in revenue when compared to the $257.9 million realized by land-based casinos in July 2016.
Despite the poor performance during the past four months, overall land-based casino revenue showed a slight gain of 0.2 percent on a year-to-date basis with revenues in the first eight months of this year reaching $1.639 billion, compared to $1.636 billion the same period a year ago.
Online Revenues Continue to Boom
Despite poor returns from land-based operations, online revenue once again increased in August. This is of little surprise since there hasn't been a single month since regulated online gaming was introduced to the Garden State that an increase in online revenue didn't take place when compared to the same month a year before.
Regulated online casinos grew revenue to $16.1 million in August 2016, representing a huge 31.6 percent increase from the $12.2 million recorded revenue in August 2015. Year-to-date revenues increased by a similar 32.6 percent from $96.8 million in August 2015 to $128.3 million in August 2016.
However, this may not tell the entire story as online revenue decreased in August 2016 by 7.5 percent (from $17.4 million in July 2016).
Borgata is once again the leader in online revenues with $3.7 million in August 2016. Despite this, its growth rate was only 1.7 percent when compared to the $3.6 million recorded in the same period a year ago. All other online casinos license holders grew at a more substantial year-over-year rate.
Breakdown of August 2016 Online Gaming
| License Holder | August 2016 | August 2015 | Percent Increase |
|---|---|---|---|
| Borgata | $3,737,494 | $3,676,513 | 1.7% |
| Caesars Interactive NJ | $3,117,389 | $2,765,867 | 12.7% |
| Golden Nugget | $3,469,206 | $2,250,713 | 54.1% |
| Resorts Digital | $2,896,284 | $735,140 | 294.0% |
| Tropicana | $2,853,930 | $2,789,280 | 2.3% |
| Total | $17,368,984 | $12,531,991 | 38.6% |
Taxes contributed to the state for the first time in recent memory decreased with $19.2 million contributed last month, when compared to the $19.6 million contributed for the same period a year ago and the $21.4 million contributed for July 2016.
Similarly, $3.3 million in reinvestment obligations was contributed last month to the Casino Reinvestment Development Authority. This was a drop from the $3.4 million contributed during the same period a year ago and the $3.7 million from July 2016.
*Data contributed by https://www.nj.gov and lead image courtesy of watchdog.org.
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