A change in the way the New Jersey Division of Gaming Enforcement (DGE) reports online gambling revenue will provide journalists and investors with unprecedented insight into how individual brands are performing in the state. Starting with the upcoming report on April 16—which will cover the state’s revenue figures for March—the DGE will report financial statistics for each skin rather than each license.
Among other things, this means we will soon know which online casino brand is the market leader in New Jersey.
When New Jersey legalized online casinos, it created a regulatory structure that has since become the standard many other states have followed. Only land-based casino license holders can obtain master licenses for online gambling. However, each can partner with one or more third-party companies to operate through those licenses.
In New Jersey, there are nine master licenses held by the nine casinos in Atlantic City. Each can have up to five skins. That’s more than enough room for any operators interested in the market. At the moment, 31 of the possible 45 slots are filled.
For the first ten years of the market, the DGE has been reporting revenue for each master license. Going forward, it will continue to report those numbers but also provide an operator-by-operator breakdown. The change applies to sports betting reports as well as to iGaming.
In an email, the NJ Office of the Attorney General announced:
Going forward, the consolidated data will continue to be presented in the monthly press release statistics. However, DGE will now be making public the gross revenue of each of the “skins” that comprise the consolidated amount through changes to the monthly reports provided by the casinos and racetracks.
Operator-Level Data Will Provide Clarity on Market Dynamics
The DGE’s decision to report revenue for each license was for conciseness.
However, as the market has filled up, that information has become less useful for those trying to understand its dynamics. Some licenses have hit their maximum allotment of five skins, meaning their revenue figures are for five brands mixed together.
For instance, Golden Nugget operates its own online casino brand. However, its license also provides market access to Betway, FanDuel, BetRivers, and Jackpot City.
In February, that license earned $51.5 million in gross gaming revenue. Unfortunately, there has been no way of telling how much of that comes from each of those five brands.
Similarly, DraftKings’ revenue is mixed in with that of four other operators on the Resorts license. So, any comparison of DraftKings and FanDuel in New Jersey would have required a lot of guesswork.
Starting with the March 2024 data, that will no longer be the case. Reporters and the general public will be able to compare these and other brands to one another directly without speculating about the breakdown within each license.
Mixing of Operator Revenues is a Common Problem
Most other states that have online casinos have followed the New Jersey regulatory model. Unfortunately, that means that Pennsylvania and West Virginia suffer the same problem when it comes to revenue reporting. Hopefully, the Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board and West Virginia Lottery will note this policy change and follow suit.
The same problem is even more widespread when it comes to sports betting, as that has been legalized in far more states.
Until now, the only states that have provided us with insight into individual operators have been Michigan and Connecticut by virtue of the fact that each allows only a single skin per master license.
Who Will We Find Winning the NJ Market Share Battle?
Connecticut is a two-operator market, so Michigan provides our only real data point for guessing what the New Jersey split will look like.
The Big Three brands dominate the Michigan online casino market: BetMGM, FanDuel, and DraftKings. BetMGM has historically been the market leader, though FanDuel is poised to overtake it.
Together, the Big Three have always held about 70% of the market, while the other 12 brands have split the remaining 30%.
We will likely see the same three brands topping the chart in New Jersey. However, their collective share will probably be a bit smaller. That’s because there are so many other online casinos in New Jersey, some of which enjoyed a big head start.
The licenses corresponding to BetMGM, FanDuel, and DraftKings are Borgata, Golden Nugget, and Resorts, respectively. Over the past 12 months, they’ve held 80.5% of the market. However, there are 12 other skins included in that.
Some of those other skins will likely turn out to be tiny, but others may be significant. In particular, Golden Nugget, PokerStars and BetRivers hold roughly 12% of the Michigan market. BetMGM’s share will also likely be split with the other brands it controls: Party, Borgata, and Wheel of Fortune.
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