It’s no secret that the Covid-19 pandemic brought the world to a screeching halt back in March, and while some businesses are succumbing to the economic turmoil, others have thrived during it. In fact, New Jersey just set a record-breaking month in online gambling, with 93.5 million dollars in revenue during October.
“Casino win was 92% of last October’s performance, even though the two years are not reasonably comparable,” said James Plousis, chairman of the New Jersey Casino Control Commission.” During this time, Atlantic City continues to show resilience in the face of necessary and ongoing restrictions on capacity, amenities, and entertainment.”
Online poker playing down slightly
Now, online poker saw a slight decrease in activity this month due to various factors, but it wasn’t enough to hurt New Jersey’s record-breaking month. New Jersey sets records in a variety of different gambling categories, and a lot of it may have to do with parts of America still being under some kind of restriction. Or maybe it just has to do with Casino not being considered safe by the CDC.
Believe it or not, the state of New Jersey brought in over 380 million dollars in gambling revenue, and a lot of that has to do with an uptick in online gambling. The state even keeps having an increase of 5% in total revenue from gambling, and that trend doesn’t show much sign of slowing down.
New Jersey starting to set a trend?
The news comes one month after New Jersey’s previous record, which was around 88 million in revenue. Now, what’s interesting about these numbers is that casinos are open across the garden state, but a lot of citizens seem unwilling to risk infection. Not only could that be a sign of what happens to casinos across the United States, but it also means that online gambling is becoming the norm. In the state.
Looking at the numbers, online poker and casino games brought in a whopping $93,451,523 this month. Keep in mind, this is up from $87,633,697 last month, and you can see that online gambling in New Jersey is steadily climbing. Furthermore, with many health experts predicting a dark winter for the United States, those numbers could grow exponentially!
Will online gambling continue to grow due to Covid-19?
With Covid-19 cases increasing by the day and hospitals filling with patients, one would think that another shutdown is on the horizon. If that happens, one can reasonably expect growth in online gambling, and it might even result in more people giving up casinos for a while. It could also create another boom period for online gambling in the United States and help mitigate the damage done to the economy.
According to Onlinepokerreport.com “Some of that growth is organic, though New Jersey isn’t a new market, and well past its honeymoon period. Its annual growth figures for online gambling were 62% in 2019 and between 20% and 35% for several years before that. Thus, probably at least half of this year’s growth comes from COVID-19 and the casino shut down, and the fact that this increase has been sustained is remarkable.”
In the end, a lot of trends are starting to develop as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic, and online gambling is definitely one of them. One could probably even make the argument that states legalizing online gambling would help prevent further outbreaks. It might just be one of those things where going to the casino becomes a novelty, and online gambling the norm.