In an effort to capture much of the lost revenue from Atlantic City, New Jersey launched online gambling in November 2013. Many struggling Atlantic City casinos had high hopes that the addition of online gambling would keep them from closing their doors, but the results are not living up to the lofty initial expectations.
While the number of online gaming account holders increased 8% from May to June 2014, and has more than tripled since December, overall revenues have not followed the same trends. In fact, revenues have been on the decline for three months in a row.
So far for the year, online gambling in New Jersey has generated $63 million. While this is a substantial amount of revenue, it is drastically less than expected, prompting Wall Street credit rating firm Fitch Ratings to modify their already conservative estimates for the states online casino revenues. What started out in December as a $300 million forecast, has dropped down to $200 million, and now stands at an estimated $120 million.
With the online casinos are generating less than half of what was expected, many brick and mortar casinos are being compelled to shut or consider shutting their doors.
Join the Conversation