With $1.23 billion having been wagered in New Jersey on sports betting in December, how much of a decline would there be come January given New York’s Jan. 8 launch of mobile sports betting?
The answer, stemming from Wednesday’s New Jersey Division of Gaming Enforcement press release, turns out to be “none.”
Even without a full slate of NFL games for most of the month and with only a handful of college football contests, the betting handle in the Garden State actually rose, to a record $1.35 billion. That noses out October’s mark of $1.3 billion as the new state record.
Previous studies suggesting that New Jersey sportsbooks were taking in about 20% of their wagers from New York residents led to some concern that the launch of mobile betting in the Empire State could produce that level of decline.
But in a story published by NJ Online Gambling last month, an industry source predicted that New Jersey would not suffer from the new competition because sophisticated “syndicates,” or groups of high-stakes bettors who collaborate on wagers, are entrenched in betting in New Jersey and would continue as they have.
“There’s many syndicates that already operate that way in New Jersey,” the source said. “That’s why this expected precipitous drop in handle as a result of New York legalizing won’t be as bad as people think. There’s already a ton of out-of-state money — and out-of-country money — flowing through New Jersey.”
That seems as good an explanation as any for the lack of harm to the state’s betting volume in January.
While New Jersey gamblers risked $553.7 million on professional and college basketball in January, the sportsbooks managed just a 0.6% winning mark on those wagers.
Football bettors lost a modest 3.5% of their $340.3 million in bets, but the sportsbooks reaped a meaty 16% margin on the $268 million in multi-leg parlay bets for the month. Parlays in 2021 produced a 17.5% hold for the books.
That helped produce a now-typical $60.2 million in gross revenue for the books in January — a hair higher than January’s mark, but barely half of the $114.8 million that the books generated in a dream November.
Mobile wagers accounted for 89.7% of the wagers placed in January, with the remaining $139.2 million in bets being made at the state’s nine Atlantic City casinos and three racetracks — Meadowlands Racetrack, Monmouth Park, and Freehold Raceway.
Of the $60.2 million in betting revenue for the month, more than half — or $38.4 million — came from the Meadowlands track and its partners FanDuel, PointsBet, and Superbook.
Resorts Digital — a partnership of the Atlantic City casino, DraftKings, and FOX Bet — checked in at $10.2 million. Earlier this week, Resorts announced it was shuttering its modest mobile sportsbook to make way for “a major global sports betting company” that would take its place.
Borgata and partner BetMGM teamed for $4.9 million in revenue. At the bottom of the pack, Golden Nugget and Caesars each reported between just $5,000 and $6,000 in sports betting revenue.
There surely will come a point when New Jersey’s 9-year-old online casino industry’s revenue figures will level off. But that time is not yet here.
January’s $137.8 million in revenue broke another monthly record, and it was the 12th consecutive month over $100 million. The old mark, set in December, was $133.2 million.
Borgata, Golden Nugget, and Resorts Digital each took in between $30 million and $40 million as the three-way battle continues. Borgata won the 2021 battle at $412.1 billion and is on track after one month to match or exceed that figure.
As for brick-and-mortar casinos in Atlantic City, that revenue of $183.8 million was led by Borgata ($48.4 million) and Hard Rock ($34.7 million).
Nearly half of the state’s $40.5 million tax cut from overall gambling revenue (not including horse racing or lottery) came from the 15% levy on online casino revenue.
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