Caesars Interactive Analyses Gaming Data to Better Target Customers
A significant number of legal online gamblers in New Jersey live within one hour of Atlantic City, say operators who have analyzed their numbers. Three of the five municipalities with the most online betters are found within an hour’s drive of the Boardwalk.
Despite the news, gambling operators say these are not the same regular customers who gamble at their brick-and-mortar enterprises. The demographics data continues to be analyzed and interpreted, to learn the exact meaning of the gaming trends in the nearly 5-month old New Jersey experiment with licensed online gambling.
Caesars Interactive Entertainment Gaming Data
Caesars Interactive Entertainment is the company which is providing the most information, so the numbers given are those logging onto the Caesars Interactive gaming sites. Toms River in Ocean County has more players than anyone in the state playing on those sites.
Cherry Hill in Camden County has the 3rd-most people logging on to the Atlantic City websites. Brick in Ocean County has the 5th-most people visiting those websites. Both are within an hour’s drive of Atlantic City.
Meanwhile, Jersey City and Hoboken in the northern part of the state come in 2nd and 4th in the numbers. The numbers are drawn from November 21, 2013 until February 28, 2014.
Clarification of Media Reports
Some media outlets have reported that “most New Jersey online gamblers” live within one hour of the brick-and-mortar casinos. That would imply more than 50% of the gamblers are living within an hour’s radius of those gaming venues. In fact, they are taking the fact 3 of the 5 largest gaming demographics are in that radius and assuming that equals more than half.
This misconception might give the impression that regular land-based gamblers are staying home to gamble online instead, when Caesars has analyzed the player data and decided most of these people are new to their gambling business. Seth Palansky, a spokesman for Caesars Interactive, says his company’s patterns are similar to those of other companies. Borgata Online, which has 40% of the Internet business, says 85% of its online customer base is brand new.
In all, gamblers from 450 cities are in the Caesars Interactive database. The top ten cities were “significantly differentiated” from the rest of the cities on the list, meaning they contain a big section of the online gamblers.
Atlantic City County Numbers
For instance, several municipalities in the Atlantic City area itself do not place that highly in the rankings. Egg Harbor township is 25th, Atlantic City is 27th, and Galloway township is 32nd in the listings. Atlantic City is the 21st-largest city by population in the state, so it is behind several cities with smaller populations. One answer might be work-related associations: so many people in Atlantic City work in the casinos, resorts, and hotels there, many of these people are not that interested in gambling once they get off work.
Egg Harbor’s tiny population of less than 5,000 is a bit of an anomaly, but that’s the way with a lot of the data. The biggest unexplained facet of player usage is the fact those areas with the most activity received no more advertisement than other parts of the state, according to Seth Palansky. Caesars Interactive continues to study these cities, trying to isolate why these particular areas are more active online.
Palansky added, “What’s interesting is there was no extra attention paid to any of these markets. This is only our first 100 days in the market. We really need year over year to get reliable enough data to take advantage of this more.”
It would be wise to avoid extrapolating too much from the gaming data provided, though. The numbers given indicate people who have logged on to the websites, without providing insight into their gaming habits. Borgata’s people have already stated many registrants have gone online to see how the websites work, but haven’t played yet. They seem to have curiosity about online gaming, mainly. Borgata has declined to provide numbers for their operations.
Gambling Research
Researchers at the Lloyd D. Levenson Institute of Gaming, Hospitality and Tourism at Richard Stockton College say they found about 2.5% of New Jersey’s gamblers have given online gambling a try since the legalized form began in November 2013. Another 7% say they intend on giving Internet betting a try in the next calendar year.
