The April numbers from New Jersey’s online gaming market were recently released, and they’re somewhat disappointing. April’s gaming revenue was $11,428,737, compared to $11,878,374 in March – a 3.8% decrease.
The one positive to take from this dip is that revenue from casino games increased from $8,667,711 up to $8,836,898. On the downside, New Jersey online poker earnings decreased from $3,210,663 to $2,591,839 – a 19.3% freefall. As you can see, internet poker is the big reason why NJ suffered the overall decrease in their gaming market.
How Individual Casinos Fared
Borgata/bwin.party – Gaming revenue dropped from $4.39m to $4.11m, with their poker operation’s $231k decrease being a primary catalyst in the down month.
Caesars/888 – Had a disastrous month after seeing gaming earnings fall from $3.71m to $3.05m.
Golden Nugget – Offering only casino games, Golden Nugget fell from $677,746 in March to $575,914 in April, about a 15% drop.
Tropicana/Virgin/Gamesys – Another operator that only features casino games, Tropicana had a good month after increasing from $1,895,826 to $2,145,103.
Trump Plaza/Betfair – The best month belongs to Trump Plaza as their revenue skyrocketed from $509,531 to $926,278 in April.
Trump Taj Mahal/Ultimate Gaming – Trump’s revenue dropped from $682,639 to $609,450, with a large part of this attributed to their poker room’s $50k decrease.
Is this as Good as New Jersey Online Gaming will get?
For the past few months, we’ve been hearing that there’s a lot of room for New Jersey gaming to grow. Geolocation problems and credit card issues have heavily plagued the operation over the first five months. But the geolocation problems have all but been solved, so now it’s a little disheartening that the market has already experienced a down month.
As for credit card processing, though, some estimate that up to 75% of credit card transactions are being rejected. This is obviously a huge turnoff for recreational players who are looking to play some online poker or casino games. That said, dramatically lowering credit card rejections could help the market experience growth again.