New Jersey Gaming Revenue Up in June, Despite Bad Luck for Sportsbooks

Atlantic City land-based casinos continue to try and find their way while online revenue helps keep them afloat. (Image: Associated Press)

The New Jersey Division of Gaming Enforcement released its revenue report for June 2024 on Tuesday, showing that the state took $491 million in revenue for the month.

That number included both in-person and online gambling, encompassing both casinos and horse tracks, and was up 7.4 percent year-over-year when compared to June 2023.

Internet Gaming Revenue Pushes Overall Growth

In-person revenues from Atlantic City’s casinos were up 1 percent in June to $244.1 million, compared to $241.6 million in June 2023. 

That mild improvement was far outstripped by internet gaming, which continues to fuel growth in New Jersey’s gaming industry. Online casinos brought in $186.8 million in June, up 25.2 percent compared to $149.3 million a year before.

That growth is welcome for Atlantic City’s casinos, but doesn’t signal as strong an improvement for them as it may seem. Because those casinos share their internet gaming revenues with partners such as technology platforms and online operators, they aren’t keeping all of those gains, making in-person gaming far more important for their bottom lines. 

Sports Betting Revenue Down Despite Increased Handle

What that growth did help balance was a disappointing month for the state’s sportsbooks. Casino sports betting generated $27.1 million in revenue in June, down about 24 percent from last year. Racetracks did a bit better, bringing the state’s total haul to $60.1 million, though that was still down 9.5 percent from $66.4 million in June 2023. 

However, that seemed to indicate bad luck on the part of the sportsbooks rather than any actual downturn in betting interest from the public. The DGE report indicated a sports betting handle of $748.4 million for the month, up 26.6% from last year. In other words, it was only a relatively low hold of about eight percent that kept revenues down.

“At first glance, a decline of nearly 24 percent in sports betting revenue for Atlantic City’s casino operators is a bit surprising given recent positive performance from that sector,” Jane Bokunewicz, director of the Lloyd Levenson Institute at Stockton University, told the Associated Press. “It seems likely that the decline in sports betting revenue this June is a function of odds set by the oddsmakers, the bets made by the public, and the outcomes of live events. At the end of the day there will always be some variability by nature in gambling activity.”

Overall, five of the nine Atlantic City casinos saw overall gains for the month, while the other four were down. The largest year-over-year increase came from the Tropicana, which was up 30.7 percent to $38.6 million in revenue for June 2024. Caesars took the biggest hit, falling 11.1 percent to $19.2 million in revenue. 

So far in 2024, New Jersey’s gaming industry has brought in approximately $3.06 billion in total revenue from all channels, compared to $2.73 billion last year through June.