Sports betting in New Jersey

New Jersey led the fight to end the federal ban on sports betting. Although there was opposition at every turn, mainly from the major sports leagues, the fight was finally won in the US Supreme Court.

Since the Supreme Court struck down the federal ban in May 2018, each state can make its own decision about whether to offer sports betting.

Sportsbooks in New Jersey opened just a month later. Since then, sports betting revenues for the state have been increasing each month.?While some states with sportsbooks have not been getting near their revenue forecasts, New Jersey has consistently surpassed expectations.

One of the main reasons for success is the popularity of mobile sportsbooks. More than 80% of the sports betting intake comes from mobile sportsbooks. Players even come from neighboring states and just cross over into New Jersey to place sports bets from their mobile devices.

Overall gambling revenues in March

The state’s sports betting revenues showed further?increases in sports betting revenue?for March. Total gambling revenues went past the $294m (￡225.5m) mark for the month. Physical casinos had a year-on-year increase of 15%, surpassing $223m (￡171m).

Online gambling revenues showed a massive increase of 53% over March 2018. More than $39.1m (￡30.0m) in online bets was placed during March, beating the previous monthly record, set in January.

One of the main drivers of these online revenues was through the increasing popularity of classic games like table games and slots. There was a small drop in online poker revenues, which fell by 1.6% to $5.6m (￡4.3m).

The leader in online platforms was the Golden Nugget, reaching $14.2m (￡10.9m) in revenue for the month. This is an increase of over 64% from March 2018. Resorts Digital was in second place, doubling its year-on-year online revenue to $8.5m (￡6.5m).

For the first quarter of 2019, total gambling revenue was $764.8m (￡586.7m), is an increase of 28% over the first quarter of 2018.

Record sports betting revenues

The main driver for sports betting revenues in New Jersey for March was the March Madness NCAA basketball event, which is one of the biggest sporting events for American bettors.

In March, more than $372m (￡285.4) was placed on sports bets in the state. Profit levels for the sportsbooks in the first quarter of 2019 reached $63m (￡48.3m). This means that the state government received tax revenues of $7.7m (￡5.9m).

Online sportsbooks accounted for about 80.8% of the intake, with $298.3m (￡228.8m) worth of sports bets.

Since the first sportsbooks opened in New Jersey in June 2018, more than $2.3bn (￡1.76bn) has been wagered on sporting events. Both the Super Bowl and March Madness were significant drivers for the first-quarter figures.

However, more sports bets were made with DraftKings in the first weekend of March Madness than for the Super Bowl. Their online sportsbook was second in the rankings for March, with revenues of $7.3m (￡5.6m).

The sportsbook at FanDuel set the record for the highest monthly revenue figure for a sportsbook in New Jersey, with revenues of over $17.6m (￡13.5m) for March. This is the company in which the European bookmaker Paddy Power Betfair has a majority stake.

The Meadowlands had the leading retail sportsbook, hitting gross revenues of $4.3m (￡3.3m) in March, an increase of $1.5m (￡1.15m) over February. Monmouth Park was in second place with just shy of $1m (￡770,000) in revenues.

The sportsbooks in New Jersey have been gaining on Las Vegas, which has traditionally been the leading state in sports betting. New Jersey is getting closer, but Nevada reported about $500m (￡383.6m) worth of bets during March Madness, which still puts the state a good bit ahead.