Sports betting in New Jersey continues to flourish with a new set of numbers that paint a very strong picture for the month of October. Sportsbooks took in over $803 million in wagers and have now taken in over $4 billion in bets during the 2020 calendar year.
We are talking about extremely significant money in New Jersey, which could very well be on its way to $1 billion in wagers one of these months. Of course, it would help if this pesky pandemic would go away.
A regular November like what we are accustomed to with NFL, college football, NBA, college basketball, NHL, UFC, golf, soccer, tennis, and even the NASCAR Championship race might have been enough to get there. However, with college hoops looking rather grim and people forced to sit on their wallets a little harder because of the times, we probably won’t get there.
Nevertheless, October was a big month. Of the $803,096,172 in wagers, the sportsbooks held $58,508,647 in revenue. This was another single-month all-time record for New Jersey in both departments, as September’s total handle was around $748.5 million. The state is certainly trending up and it is pretty clear that the true home of sports betting in the United States is New Jersey.
Not surprisingly, about 92.6% of the dollars wagered came from online or mobile betting. Only $59 million and change was bet in a retail setting. Perhaps those numbers would look a little bit different without COVID, but the fact of the matter is that wagering from home or from a mobile device is remarkably convenient and the preferred way for most people to bet.
If we look at specific operators, we can see that FanDuel is still ahead in New Jersey, as the Meadowlands property reported just under $30 million in revenue. Resorts Digital, which is where DraftKings has a license, reported $14.6 million in revenue.
One thing that is very interesting to note at this point in time is that New Jersey only has a hold percentage on straight football wagers of 3.3%. The hold percentage on parlays for the year-to-date is 13.5% and there are sure to be a lot of football bets within those tickets, but football has actually been the lowest earner for the New Jersey sportsbooks.
Of course, the seasons are really only 50-60% over at this point in time, but it may have a lot to do with all of the free money and bonuses doled out that get used on football. With this past month, the football handle surpassed the baseball handle for the year-to-date. It will also pass basketball by the end of November.
Month over month, from October 2019 to October 2020, sports betting revenue is up 26.1% overall in New Jersey, so more and more people are betting and more and more tax money is flowing into the state’s coffers.
Year over year, going from January 1 through the end of October in 2019 and 2020, sports betting revenue is up 18.8%, while total revenue is down 20.7% because people are not frequenting the casinos. Internet casino revenue is up 102.8% from this point last year, but the retail casino revenue is down almost 46%.
We’ll see what November brings, as some semblance of college basketball should start at the end of the month and hopefully the NFL and college football will keep pushing forward.
For all of the New Jersey financials, here is the official press release.
