Online Casino Revenues Grow While Land-Based Earnings Drop in September

New Jersey casinos continue to generate steady revenues for iGaming and land-based services. For September, the online market saw a nice boost, bringing in just over $163 million in earnings. The land-based sector saw a slight drop of 2.1% with $246.5 million. Analysts observed that drop and wonder if the recent cyberattacks against MGM Resorts and Caesars Entertainment have anything to do with the decrease.

The nine casinos in Atlantic City were able to generate $246.5 million for September from in-person wagers. This was a slight decline from the previous year by 2.1%. Only Hard Rock Casino and Ocean Casino Resort could post a better return from the same time frame in 2022.

The revenue downtown was surprising, considering how well the venues have fared over the past few months. Many analysts speculate that the cyberattacks against Caesars and MGM Resorts may have left players wanting to shy away from the brands.

In Atlantic City, there are four casinos in operation that the two brands own, and collectively, they saw a more than 9% decrease in earnings, with a close to $12 million decrease. It may be that players were afraid to visit due to technical issues or fear of personal information being stolen.

Borgata Hotel Casino saw the biggest earnings for the month. Despite a 12.9% decline with only $53.4 million in earnings, they are still the market leader. Hard Rock came in next with $46.9 million, a 7.3% increase from last year.

Ocean was up $39.5 million, a 29.2% increase from 2022. Ocean is seeing a record year, earning just over $300 million for 2023, a boost of over 14% YOY. Caesars earned $21.4 million in September, followed by Harrah’s with $22.2 million, and Tropicana AC with $21.5 million. Unfortunately, Caesars dropped 4.5%, Harrah’s was down 4.3%, and Tropicana saw a larger 8% decrease.

Bally’s brought in just $13.1 million, a decrease of over 17%. Resorts Hotel earned just under $15 million, which was a drop of more than 10%. Golden Nugget rounds out the list with $12.7 million in revenues, a 6.1% drop.

While the land-based casinos are struggling, the NJ online casinos are thriving. September was the second-highest-grossing month ever for the state regarding iGaming, with $163.8 million generated. This was a 21.1% increase from last year.

So far this year, online casinos have earned over $1.4 billion. The industry is over 15% higher at this point than it was last year, with no sign of slowing down. NJ online casino gaming has continued to hit the $100 million mark consecutively for almost three years, every month.

As far as individual earnings are concerned, Resorts Digital reported the bulk of the income. The brand brought in just over $45 million, a boost of over 32% from last year. The license held by Resorts allows the Resorts Casino, Mohegan Sun Casino, PokerStars, and DraftKings to offer online services.

The Borgata also has a license and offers BetMGM Casino, Party Casino, Party Poker, Pala Casino, Wheel of Fortune, and the Borgata Online. The operators under this license earned just over $41 million for the month. This was a slight increase of just over 1%.

Golden Nugget saw a successful month with its brands, bringing in just over $45 million. Bally’s AC was one of the smaller earners, bringing in $7 million, a more than 86% revenue boost. Hard Rock added $6.2 million, and Ocean brought a modest $4.4 million.

The online industry is easily on its way to reaching a record year if the monthly total increases continue for October, November, and December. We will see in the coming months how the online casino industry finishes out the year.