New Jersey in the News — Weekly Round-up for August 17, 2018

Resorts Opens Retail Sports Book In New Jersey

Expects to launch online version in September

Resorts Casino Hotel launched its land sportsbook in New Jersey Wednesday, revealing that it anticipates launching an online version next (September) month.

The sportsbook is on temporary premises that were formerly the property’s iGaming Lounge pending the completion of a permanent home elsewhere on the Resorts premises at the end of 2018.

Resorts has New Jersey partnerships in place with DraftKings and SBTech covering the development of sportsbook solutions “across on-property, online and mobile channels.”

In related news, Wednesday also saw the launch of the Golden Nugget temporary sportsbook in Atlantic City. The temporary location is situated in Golden Nugget’s old poker room, and the permanent sportsbook will be nearby and open by the end of August.

Creative Agency Renews Contract With New Jersey Casino Operators

Vegas Kings inks a new 12-month agreement with Resorts Casino and Mohegan Sun

Creative agency Vegas Kings, which has been managing all Resorts Digital Gaming’s online and offline creatives for the last two and a half years, has secured a further 12–month retainer to continue providing a full tiered service to both ResortsCasino.com and MoheganSunCasino.com.

“Both brands are gaining great share within the New Jersey online market and the additional value that VK brings to the table is helping pave the way for both services to be at the forefront of the industry,” Ashley Adir, CEO of Vegas Kings claimed in a statement Thursday.

Vegas Kings handles all the daily creative and web development requests ranging from online acquisition banner creatives, social media adverts, HTML mailers, video production promoting new games to full HD TV adverts, billboards and website back-end development.

New Jersey Online Gambling Sets New Records In July

The new revenue number to beat is $25.9 million

New Jersey’s online gambling sector continued on its upward curve in July 2018, with a new record for revenues set at $25.9 million… a good $300,000 improvement on the previous record set in March this year (see previous InfoPowa report).

On a year-on-year basis, July’s revenues exceeded those of a year earlier by $5.3 million, according to New Jersey gambling regulator the Division for Gaming Enforcement.

The online casino vertical once again accounted for the bulk of the revenue in July, reporting revenue up almost 30 percent to overtake the $24 million benchmark. Online poker continued to disappoint, with revenue down 8 percent at just $1.85 million.

On a year-to-date basis total online gambling revenues in the Garden State are up 16.5 percent at $165.4 million, made up of online casino (up 19.7 percent at $152.4 million) and online poker (down 11 percent at $13 million)
Golden Nugget again led the New Jersey online market on $9.3 million in revenue – an improvement over its previous best month of $8.65 million set in March this year. Borgata trailed on $4.9 million, and Resorts Digital Gaming came in at third with $3.94 million.

Caesars Interactive Entertainment took fourth place on $3.8 million, with a healthy $728,000 contribution from poker, whilst Tropicana took the fifth spot on $3.35 million.

Newcomers Ocean Resort Casino and the Hard Rock Atlantic City recorded respectively $250,000 and $330,000 in revenues.

The newly legalised sports betting action recorded its first full month of operations, posting wagers of $40.7 million in July, and generating $3.8million in revenue. Legalised sports betting commenced mid-June in the state.

The existing operators were joined on July 14 by FanDuel Group sportsbook at Meadowlands Racetrack, and by Caesar’s Entertainment sportsbook which opened at Bally’s – Atlantic City on July 30 July, and later at Harrah’s Resort Atlantic City on August 1 (see previous InfoPowa reports).

FanDuel could be the one to watch, in just the second half of July it recorded gross revenue of $1.35 million

Ocean Resort, which opened June 28, led the sportsbook full July roster with gross revenue of $1.03 million, followed by Monmouth Park on $856,280 in July gross revenue. August should see a better company comparison with all operators completing a full month of activity.

Observers are predicting that New Jersey will have as many as twelve online sportsbooks by the end of 2018.

NetEnt Games Live At Atlantic City Casino Resort Online Operation

Successful technical integration

Online gambling games and software provider NetEnt announced Tuesday that its games are now live with Ocean Resort’s online operation in Atlantic City, New Jersey.

NetEnt has gone live with a broad selection of video slots. In the coming months the whole portfolio of online casino games from the Swedish provider will be available to Ocean Resort players.

Following a successful technical integration, a broad selection of NetEnt’s games are now available to New Jersey players, with more slots scheduled for roll out over the coming weeks.

The NetEnt games will run on the GAN platform.