Struggling to find momentum
The New Jersey Division of Gaming Enforcement confirmed the harrowing trend in its latest revenue report.
The unfortunate downswing picks up where it left off in 2024, when Q4 revenue dropped 1.7 percent year-over-year.
New Jersey Casino Control Commission Chair James Plousis said in a statement that rising costs in Atlantic City likely played a role in the troubling first-quarter totals.
“Atlantic City’s first quarter net revenue declined in comparison to the same periods of the past two years, reflecting economic pressure that affects regional gaming and leisure tourism,” said Plousis. “Lower gross operating profit due to the elevated cost of goods and services purchased by the operators continued to be seen in the first quarter.”
Unfortunately for Plousis and other gaming supporters, this is not the first time that Q1 revenue has come up miserably short. Q1 2024 revenue showed a near-nine percent decline year-over-year, and the state’s retail casinos have not produced Q1 growth since 2022.
On top of that, the $159 average price paid by hotel guests was three percent lower than it was in Q1 2024. That’s in addition to the temporary stays having far more available rooms than they were accustomed to.
An online world
A new day can always bring new beginnings, but even those prospects seem bleak.
Retail casino gaming in April was down 2.7 percent ($5.9 million) on the $211 million reported the year before. Table games played a major role in the decline as dealers only won $48.8 million, $9.3 million less than the year before.
In-person sports betting also saw a substantial decline as legal sportsbooks at the casino facilities churned 15 percent less revenue than they did during April 2024.
Only two casinos, Hard Rock and Tropicana, reported higher profits than they did the year before. The former took in $27 million in revenue, a 2.9 percent year-over-year increase, while the latter claimed $13.4 million, a 7.1 percent year-over-year increase.
Even as those two were the outliers, overall gambling revenue in New Jersey increased five percent year-over-year in April. That was largely due to the massive increase in iGaming, which includes online casinos, which beat retail casinos in money wagered and revenue produced.
iGaming revenue hit $235.2 million, a 25.2 percent increase from the previous year and just off the all-time monthly record from March.
