New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy marked the one-year anniversary of sports betting in the state by again predicting that New Jersey will soon pass Nevada in total sports handle.
State regulators report that almost $3 billion has been bet on sporting events over the past year and Murphy said the market is still growing. New Jersey’s sports betting handle is likely to exceed Las Vegas in the near future, he said.
“While we all knew it would be successful, I don’t think anyone expected how quickly New Jersey would come to dominate the growth in the market in the year since our sports betting law took effect, or how advantageously New Jersey would be positioned to dominate the entire marketplace,” Murphy said in a speech at the All-American Sports Betting Summit held at the Meadowlands as reported by the Asbury Park Press.
“In one year, we’ve gone from zero to 60 percent of the total handle in Nevada sports books, a state that had a 70-year head start,” he said “And yes, they can hear our footsteps. In other words, New Jersey sports book is a horse that can run and close and win. And we’re also a horse that is strong enough to create good jobs at our racetracks and casinos and in the growing tech sector. It’s a horse that can pull our entire economy, in many respects, forward.”
Murphy’s speech came at the site of the state’s No. 1 sportsbook. The FanDuel Sportsbook at the Meadowlands Racetrack which has seen $84.6 million in gross revenues from sports betting over the past year.
“It’s so much bigger than I ever thought it would be,” said Meadowlands Racetrack operator Jeff Gural, who claims the track’s FanDuel Sportsbook is now the largest sportsbook in the world. “For me it saves the day. We were really floundering at the Meadowlands, and I don’t know how much longer we could have held on.”
Sports betting is expected to generate around $23 million in tax revenue for the first year, off about eight percent from the state’s $25 million estimate.
“That’s not where the action is,” former state Senator Ray Lesniak, who initiated the fight to legalize sports betting a decade ago, told the paper. “The action is in job creation, and tourism. Atlantic City and our racetracks were on life support. Sports betting has helped bring them back to life.”
As sports betting continues into a second year, the new issue is the professional sports leagues seeking cuts of revenue and pushing to have official league data used by sportsbooks as sports betting spreads across the country.
“The leagues are starting to realize what a bonanza this is for them, with maybe the exception of the NFL, which seems to still be in denial for some reason even though they are the No. 1 product we have,” Gural said. “The reality is people are only watching a lot of those games because they have a bet on them because most of the time local teams aren’t playing. So, I think as the leagues become more and more a part of the process the sports betting market will continue to grow.”
The Meadowlands expects to have close to $2 billion wagered online over its first full year of with 80 percent of the money wagered on sports in the state so far this year being done via the internet rather than at brick-and mortar facilities.
In another boost for the state, Google Ads has approved the state’s licensed sportsbooks to use its ad services. Google has been slow to approved gambling ads, but the move is a solid benefit for the state’s licensed sites trying to distinguish themselves from unlicensed offshore sites.
The change does not apply to New Jersey’s online casinos for the moment.
In another matter, the Monmouth Park Sports Book by William Hill was shut down for several hours on June 15 due to internet and phone service going down at the racetrack. Though patrons could still order food and drink at the live facility, betting was shut down until about 2:30pm.
The track also had to delay taking entries for some race dates due to the outage. However, the track was able to take bets on races as its pari-mutuel wagering service was on a different system than the track’s internet and phone service.
