The last month of the casino closures in Atlantic City produced expected results. Steep declines in overall revenue compared to June 2019, but steep gains in online gaming revenue, which offered the only games in town, except for mobile sports betting. Total revenue fell 67 percent in June to some $91 million.
Internet casino revenue rose 123 percent from $38.1 million a year ago to $84.9 million, in keeping with similar gains throughout the coronavirus pandemic-induced closings. June marked the third month in a row with over 100 percent increases, year over year, based on figures released July 14 by the Division of Gaming Enforcement.
Online gaming revenue exceeded $422.7 million for the first six months, almost twice the revenue generated in 2019. Online casino games alone have grown revenue from $50.2 million in February to $81.4 million in June. Online poker has jumped from $1.8 million in February to $3.5 million in June.
“Although internet gaming has been on an overall upward revenue trajectory since it was launched in 2013, the increase over the last few months has been even greater with the closure of brick and mortar casinos,” said Jane Bokunewicz, who serves as coordinator of the Lloyd D. Levenson Institute for Gaming, Hospitality and Tourism at Stockton University. “Thankfully, June will be the last month with zero brick and mortar casino revenue. Even at 25 percent capacity, there is nowhere to go from here but up.”
For the three full months of the shutdown between April and June, overall revenue dropped 65 percent, according to the Press of Atlantic City.
Sports betting revenue rose slightly to just over $6 million, compared to $4 million in June 2019, a gain all the more unusual because of limited sports competition this year. Taking into account the online sports betting at the Meadowlands and Monmouth Park, New Jersey sports betting produced about $165 million, even if it still meant sportsbooks took in $300 million less in bets than an ordinary June, according to PlayNJ.com estimates.
The nine casinos and the two tracks which offer sports betting won $97.5 million in June, a decline of 65.6 percent from a year earlier. The revenue dropped 65.4 percent in May, according to the Associated Press.
Sports categorized by New Jersey as “other” than football, basketball, and baseball generated $125.8 million in bets in June, up from $95.4 million in May. And bets on the three major U.S. sports ticked up, mainly on the power of futures betting on baseball and the NBA ahead of an expected July return of both.
“If MLB and the NBA return this summer as planned, expect New Jersey to get back closer to pre-pandemic numbers like $400 million in sports betting handle by September,” said Max Bichsel, vice president of U.S. business at Gambling.com Group.
New Jersey will still have longer-term issues, said Dustin Gouker, lead analyst for PlayNJ.com. “It will take time to recover, and the gaming industry will likely be affected for as long as the world is suffering from this health crisis. But for now, optimism in the industry is growing.”
As strong as online sports betting continues to be, the re-opening of Atlantic City is crucial to healing the industry, even with restrictions, Gouker said. “It will help generate new revenue, of course. And in doing so, operators are hopeful that it will help the industry steady itself.”
Even with retail casinos reopening, many remain bullish on the future of online gambling. Golden Nugget Online Gaming, which dominated the market again in June with $29.2 million in revenue, announced plans to go public. And last week, MGM Resorts/GVC Holdings released its plan to invest $250 million more in its online platform.
“The Golden Nugget Online Gaming going public, in addition to the recent success of DraftKings stock, shows just how much interest investors have in the future of online gambling,” Gouker said. “Online gambling has proven its importance to the industry through this crisis.”
