2024 has been a big year for online casinos in New Jersey. Recent months have seen them register revenue figures that have gone through the $200 million mark for the first time. How has the online poker industry contributed towards those record figures and how do those figures relate to previous years?
The revenue figures for October showed a figure of $2.349 million for online poker. That was just higher than the $2.333 million that was recorded in the previous month. October was certainly a good month for the online site of World Series of Poker (WSOP) with a figure of $974,853 recorded which was nearly $400 million ahead of PokerStars on $593,965. They were both well clear of BetMGM ($319,028) and Borgata ($302,651).
Over the last six months, each of them has seen online poker report revenue of over $2 million. In May, the total was $2.157 million but each of the five months that have had their results reported has seen a higher figure recorded.
The best month was in July with a total of $2.635. That’s the only time between May and October that the $2.5 million mark has been surpassed.
WSOP continues to record the highest total and in both June and July they went through the million dollar mark. The highest figure was seen in July with $1.088 million. October produced a big lead over PokerStars but it is their rivals who have earned the most revenue in the first ten months of the year but only just.
PokerStars achieved revenue of $6.99 million, just ahead of the $6.888 million recorded by WSOP. If the latter can continue to record higher figures than PokerStars, they look certain to record the highest online poker figure for the year. The last time PokerStars had a higher revenue figure than WSOP was in May. They had the lead ove WSOP in each of the first five months of the year.
Despite the increased revenue that WSOP has been earning, Caesars Entertainment have agreed to sell the rights of the company to NSUS Group Inc. The deal will be for $500 million, half paid in cash and the rest over a period of five years. It is believed that the change will not affect New Jersey online poker players. Caesars will continue to operate the WSOP real-money online poker business in New Jersey.
BetMGM Poker is likely to see its revenue figures increase in the coming months. They have had revenue of over $300,000 for each month this year aside from February. BetMGM Poker in New Jersey now sees the player pools being combined with Michigan in addition to Nevada.
Their revenue figures have been behind WSOP and PokerStars but just ahead of Borgata. The past six months have seen them record higher figures ranging between $310,061 and a high of $371,623 in August
Online poker revenue for the first ten months of the year was $21.333 million. It’s looking very much as if they will be able to go through the $25 million mark for the year. Last year saw just less than $29 million being recorded. The online poker websites in New Jersey as per NJBet has struggled to see growth in recent years due to the additional variety that is now available to online gamblers in the Garden State.
The arrival of online sports betting has been a key factor since the 2018 launch. That came after a US Supreme Court Judge ruling that allowed individual states to have the final say on legalizing gambling.
Revenue between November 2019 and October 2020 totalled $36.9 million. That figure owed a massive amount to the COVID-19 pandemic that caused the temporary closure of land-based casinos.
There was a near 75% increase in revenue compared to the previous year. However, since the pandemic ended, online poker in New Jersey has not been able to get near to such revenue figures. The totals being earned are still higher than before the pandemic.
Online gambling is becoming increasingly important in the state of New Jersey. The latest revenue figures for October saw online sites overtake the revenue earned by land-based casinos for the first time.
It’s 11 years since online casinos were made legal in the state of New Jersey and nearly $300 million has been earned since then. An extension to the ten-year license was granted last year.
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