Borgata’s poker room continues to lead all live card rooms in Atlantic City.
Atlantic City’s live poker revenues showed a 2% boost in May 2017. Continuing its long dominance in the live poker niche, Borgata’s poker room generated nearly 60% of the revenues.
Borgata’s live poker room generated $1.351 million in May 2017. In second place was Harrah’s Atlantic City with $332 thousand, while Bally’s generated $294 thousand in poker revenues.
Carl Icahn’s Tropicana Casino generated $222,362 to place it fourth among AC casino’s card rooms. Golden Nugget, which has the highest online casino revenues, was well behind in 5th place with only $77,390. No other Atlantic City casino has a poker room.
May 2017 Online Poker Room Revenues
Meanwhile, Atlantic City’s online poker revenue was down 17% from May 2016. The revenue loss shows that the appearance of PokerStars/Amaya in the iPoker niche has been good for Resorts Casino, but not for the online poker industry as a whole.
The Resorts Casino and PokerStars online poker room had a monthly total of $962,914 for May 2017. Borgata Online Poker generated $613,039 in winnings, while the combined Caesars Entertainment websites totaled $543,932 in revenues.
In May 2016, the online poker rake was $2,570,853. While a one-month decline is not uncommon in a smaller market if a high roller has a good month, the poor numbers appear to be an emerging trend. Atlantic City’s monthly online poker revenues dropped in March and April of this year.
Reason for Decline of New Jersey Online Poker
The best explanation for the decline is less enthusiasm than a year ago. In late-March 2016, PokerStars/Resorts online poker room launched. New Jersey players flocked to the PokerStars gaming portal, as it was the first time since April 2011 they could play at an official site for the world’s top poker brand.
A year later, PokerStars’s competitors, Borgata and Caesars, have shown a marked decline in their numbers (roughly 20% apiece). At the same time, PokerStars maintains fairly steady revenues, though PokerStars’s figures were a bit under last year’s totals. The kind of enthusiasm which drove a quick expansion in card playing stats last year has died down for PokerStars’s New Jersey card players.
Online Poker in Nearby States
Despite the dip in numbers in 2017, the proponents of online poker in New York State and Pennsylvania have pointed to New Jersey as a model of success. Now that the rollout for the websites are in the distant past, the online card rooms represent an additional $500,000 to $1,000,000 revenue stream for the various Atlantic City casinos. In an era when Atlantic City has seen numerous land-based casinos close and other struggle to make a profit, those are significant numbers. Combined with the online casino market, which has even better results, all the AC casinos prosper from their online products.
In a state like Pennsylvania, the racetrack-casinos are likely to find a wanted boost from online gambling. If the Pennsylvania online gambling omnibus bill is passed, all the brick-and-mortar gaming venues in the state are going to be confronted with competition from a new and multifaceted challenge: video lottery terminals. The VLT gaming venues are going to include taverns, clubs, restaurants, and other small businesses across the state.
In that environment, Pennsylvania’s casinos and racinos are going to need to replace lost revenues from a decline in their slot machine numbers. Online gambling is the likely remedy. The question remains whether Bethlehem Sands, the highest revenue brick-and-mortar casino in the state, would launch an online poker site. Given years of lobbying by the Sands Bethlehem’s parent company, Las Vegas Sands, that is not likely to happen.
