After a huge year in 2020, in part fueled by the global pandemic, New Jersey online poker revenues dipped for two of the three licensees to start 2021. Both Borgata and Caesars license holders bagged more than $1 million in revenue in December 2020, but both saw their revenue drop below the million-dollar mark in the first month of the new year.
However, year-over-year the market is still very strong. Revenue growth across all three operators was almost 50% higher than it was in January 2020. While that is not quite as high as in the summer months, it still shows significantly more players are playing online poker today than they did a year ago.
The exception to the sequential downward trend was PokerStars NJ, sitting on the Resorts license. It was the only operator to see revenue increase from the final month of 2020, though they still lag behind the other two players in the market.
The total revenue earned across the New Jersey poker landscape in January 2021 was $2,774,291. That is down from December’s total of more than $3 million, but marks the second highest total revenue in the state since August 2020.
| Licensee | December 2020 Poker Revenue | January 2021 Poker Revenue |
|---|---|---|
| Borgata | $1,071,071 | $926,288 |
| Caesars | $1,174,943 | $974,886 |
| Resorts | $774,039 | $843,117 |
Poker Market Share a Tossup
As 2021 began, the differences between the three poker operators in the New Jersey market narrowed. The operators working under the Caesars license—WSOP and 888poker—held a solid lead in market share for much of 2020, and they maintained the lead to start 2021 with about 35% of the market.
However, that’s down significantly from their 2020 high of more than 50%, which peaked during the online World Series of Poker events in July.
Since then, other operators have been closing the gap. The operators on the Borgata license—Borgata Poker, partypoker NJ, BetMGM, collectively making up the Partypoker US Network—spent most of 2020 with the smallest share of the New Jersey poker market, but they saw a surge in revenue near the end of the year to move into second place, and they retained that second position for the first month of 2021.
PokerStars NJ fell to third place, but the main takeaway is that the market is getting tighter. While Caesars captured slightly more than one-third of the market, there is less than 5% difference between the three going into the second month of 2021.
New Jersey Poker Market Share Since Jul 2020
| Borgata | Caesars | Resorts | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Jul 2020 | 17.5% | 58.7% | 23.8% |
| Aug 2020 | 24.7% | 43.3% | 32% |
| Sep 2020 | 30.6% | 39.3% | 30% |
| Oct 2020 | 28.7% | 37.8% | 33.5% |
| Nov 2020 | 29.3% | 40% | 30.7% |
| Dec 2020 | 35.5% | 38.9% | 25.6% |
| Jan 2021 | 33.8% | 35.5% | 30.7% |
Strong Start to 2021 in New Jersey
While the January numbers are down slightly from December, year-over-year the total increase in revenue across the operators was close to $1 million. Only $1.83 million in revenue was generated on poker in New Jersey in January of 2020, compared to $2.74 million last month.
Notably, March through to July of 2020, there was a huge increase with April numbers topping $5 million in total revenue for the first time. Two other months in that period saw better than $4 million in revenue, and all five months were well above the $3 million mark.
August saw revenues barely top the $3 million line, and they didn’t see that number again until the end of the year in December. However, the three license holders in New Jersey raked in nearly $39 million in 2020, and that was the first time yearly state revenue even topped the $30 million figure.
While the start of 2021 was down from the end of 2020, it is clear that the pandemic bump is still adding to revenues for all the New Jersey operators. The total figures for January 2021 were almost 50% above the same numbers for January 2020, and the increase looks set to continue for the short term at least.
