According to Caesars Entertainment, you can find more gamblers playing at their online sites in the New Jersey communities of Toms River, Jersey City and Cherry Hill.
Figuring out exactly why those towns have more online players, however, is a tough question.
Gamblers in the three communities spend more time on Caesars Entertainment’s online gaming sites than anyone else since, Seth Palansky, the company’s spokesman told the Newark Star-Ledger in a report on where the state’s online players are concentrated.
But no special marketing has been aimed at those cities. In fact, advertising for all of New Jersey’s online gambling sites—based out of Atlantic City casinos—has been done on a statewide basis.
TV advertising has been presented through the Philadelphia TV market, covering southern New Jersey, and the New York TV market covering northern New Jersey. But the three cities mentioned are located throughout the state. Cherry Hill is in southern New Jersey. Jersey City is in northern New Jersey and Toms River is located in central New Jersey.
That just leaves a lot of guess work. Palansky, for example, said Cherry Hill might be a hot spot since many residents already gamble in Atlantic City, which is just a short drive away.
“We do want to be careful, because it’s early, to not overanalyze the data,” Palansky told the newspaper. “It tells us after 100 days that there are areas where we should focus on marketing and that some of it has already been effective.”
Sue Schneider, a consultant and former chairwoman of the Interactive Gaming Council, told the Star-Ledger that online gaming may be strongest in places with high numbers of the elderly or disabled, for whom traveling to Atlantic City presents difficulties.
But more important for casinos may be attracting new younger players that eventually would make the trip to Atlantic City’s land-based casinos.
“That’s the value in a land-based casino that goes online,” she said. “It could eventually bring new people into the casino itself.”
So far, online gambling in New Jersey has been raising about $10 million a month in revenue, well below hoped-for projections. Part of the slow growth has come from difficulties in payment processing, as many banks and credit card issuers have refused to process payments to online gambling sites.
Others have criticized the early marketing by casinos calling it ineffective.
Still, about 250,000 separate online gambling accounts have been opened in the state.
Caesars is not the only online provider analyzing the player location data.
The Borgata Hotel Casino & Spa is the leading online provider in the state—followed closely by Caesars—but would not disclose town by town breakdowns.
“We are happy to be seeing play in northern Jersey and in the middle of the state,” Joe Lupo, senior vice president of operations at Borgata told the Star-Ledger. “However, those are the more heavily populated areas, so one would have assumed that would be the case.”
