Online gaming bolsters Atlantic City’s positive growth

A solid month for the online segment has boosted Atlantic City's casino revenues to $206m in October, with the year-to-date figure for online gaming revenue in New Jersey surpassing the $200m mark for the first time.

October's figures represent a 1.7% increase in gross revenue, compared to the $203m generated in October 2016.

Internet gambling, up 23%, was the main reason behind this positive growth. Without the $20.6m collected online, the city’s seven physical venues would have seen a revenue drop of 0.3% last month.

However, six of the seven casinos still managed to post growth in October. The Golden Nugget saw the biggest improvement, with revenues rising 17.5% to $24.2m. Caesars was up 9.5% to $25.7m; whilst Resorts was up 4.7% to almost $15m.

Harrah’s totalled $30.3m, the greatest sum across all operators, but only grew 3.5% while Bally’s was up 1.7% to $16.8m, and the Tropicana was fairly static, up 0.5% to $28m.

Meanwhile, The Borgata reported a 7.4% decline to $59.4m, being the only casino to experience negative growth in October 2017. The firm has credited the drop to customers having a lucky month at the game tables.

Aside from resorts, The Golden Nugget was also leading monthly online operations with $6.1m. It was followed by Borgata, $4m; Resorts Digital, $3.4m; Tropicana, $3.4m and Caesars Interactive-NJ, $3.3m.

So far, Atlantic City’s casino operators have posted revenues of $2.2bn for the first ten months of the year, up 2% compared to the same period in the previous year.