In Las Vegas on Tuesday, New Jersey Director of the State’s Division of Gaming Enforcement (DGE) David Rebuck said that the September sports betting financial reports would be stunning.
They weren’t quite stunning, but the numbers were still pretty huge: $184 million betting handle across retail sports betting operations at Atlantic City casinos and two racetracks, with the majority of the betting handle coming online, $104.8 million, versus $79 million across counters in person. Total revenue was just about $24 million, indicating a roughly 13 percent hold (which is a bit inflated as a result of accounting methods, explained below).
Month-over-month, the $184M represents nearly a doubling from the $96 million betting handle and $9.2 million revenues in August, when only the DraftKings Sportsbook was operating online the entire month, to be joined in Sept. by FanDuel Sportsbook, SugarHouse, William Hill and others. Below let’s dig a bit closer into the numbers.
New Jersey Sports Betting Handle Surges to $184M in September With Full Month of NFL, NCAA Football Betting — As NJ Online Sports Betting Leads the Way
“Driven by the explosive growth in sports wagering and continuing improvements in Internet gaming and brick-and-mortar casino win results, the gaming industry produced another month of superb revenue increases,” Rebuck said in a statement about gaming revenues in general. “The revenue results point to a strong finish for New Jersey’s gaming industry in 2018.”
And speaking of the gaming industry, consider the tax benefit to the State of New Jersey: September tax revenues from digital (13%) and retail (8.5%) sports betting combined for $2.6 million.
Next, let’s break down the numbers by individual licensees/properties and their sportsbooks:
September Retail Sportsbook Revenues:
- Bally’s: $394K
- Borgata: $2.4M
- Golden Nugget: $499,414
- Meadowlands Racetrack (FanDuel Sportbook): $4.4M
- Monmouth Park: $2.14M
- Ocean Resort: $1M
- Resorts: $279,492
- Harrah’s: $310,766
Considered the premiere property in Atlantic City, or let’s say fanciest, the MGM-owned Borgata’s sportsbook led the rest of the A.C. class.
Meadowlands Racetrack and its $4.4 million retail haul led all sportsbooks for the month of September. The property, which has expanded in size and seating and screens since its July launch, is only 8 miles from New York City and in a densely populated area of New Jersey. It is also on the same lot and walking distance from MetLife Stadium, where Eli Manning and the 1-5 Giants are disassembling and the Jets, well, are rebuilding.
The FanDuel Group said in a statement (in part): “As our retail Sportsbook at the New Meadowlands Racetrack grows and with the launch of the FanDuel Sportsbook app, consumer response continued to exceed our expectations in September. We are encouraged to see strong momentum in New Jersey…”.
September Online Sportsbook Revenue:
- Bally’s: $106,463 (combination of CaesarsCasino & 888sport)
- PlayMGM: $120,938
- Resorts Digital: $8.5M (combination of DraftKings Sportsbook and BetStarsNJ.com)
- FanDuel Sportsbook: 2.85M
- SugarHouse: $619,030
- Ocean Resort (via William Hill): $292,081
- Monmouth Park: $70,785
Unless DraftKings or BetStars self-reports, we can no longer parse the Resorts Digital numbers, which represent a combination of both of their revenues. Safe bet is that DraftKings accounts for about 90 percent of that $8.5 million if not more.
Fellow DFS-turned-sportsbook competitor FanDuel Sportsbook (online), which launched on Sept. 1., is in the trailing position. But DraftKings had a full month head start on educating its clientele about its product, testing and so forth. We expect their respective numbers will both grow and tighten.
Now consider the retail versus digital revenue breakdown:
Revenue attributable to online sportsbooks for NJ in September (lion's share from @DKSportsbook): $12.6 million
Revenue attributable to retail shops (led by @TheMeadowlands and @BorgataAC) for NJ in Sept. then: $11.4 million.
— Sports Handle (@sports_handle) October 12, 2018
One trend: Look at the disparity between the brick-and-mortar MGM revenue (Borgata) and its mobile product: $2.4 million versus a mere $120,938.
MGM’s mobile app playMGM is so far available for Android mobile systems only — not yet iOS, nor is it available as a web-based platform. MGM is in the midst of an apparent divorce from its tech provider IGT Gaming as it entered a new venture with GVC in late July.
“While time to market is clearly important, we are also focused on our proprietary product development roadmap, which will see new features introduced quickly, and without third party technology dependencies,” Adam Greenblatt, GVC Director of Corporate Development and Strategy, said in late August.
DraftKings and FanDuel are obviously out well ahead but look for MGM and William Hill to take a run at them online.
Final word: The number for year-to-date NJ betting handle for completed events moves out to $328 million, and the win percentage (or “hold”) at 7.9 percent.
The DGE reports are based on an accrual method that counts wagers on futures/undecided events (such as Seahawks o/u 8 wins) as revenue at the time the wagers are made. The 7.9 percent is a tick higher than what Nevada sportsbooks, serving largely more experienced bettors, typically do.
Final final word: These numbers are all pretty strong — and growing. $184 million was a bit short of what we expected (more like $250 million) but they will get there in October.
