Bloomberg ‘market makers’ TV examines New Jersey online gambling
News on 16 Jan 2014
News on 16 Jan 2014
Bloomberg TV was one of the many business and mainsteam media publications reporting on the official stats for New Jersey’s first six weeks of legalised online gambling this week.
The company’s “Market Makers” program talked with Bloomberg analyst Brian Miller on the rather slow start the numbers suggest.
Miller said that when extrapolated, the six-week number of $8.4 million indicated a first year revenue figure of around $75 million, which would be well short of previous political estimates, but he acknowledged that it was early days yet, and that new initiatives and companies entering the market would inevitably have a positive impact statistically.
Miller said that many of the teething problems had been ironed out, but that a key area of concern was the reluctance of US credit card companies, other than Mastercard-Visa, to cooperate in letting New Jersey players make deposits at online gambling websites.
That was an area that could slow development of the nascent industry in New Jersey down, he said.
On the more positive side, Miller pointed to evidence which suggested that online gambling was not going to “cannibalise” brick and mortar casino patronage, and could in fact enhance land casino fortunes by bringing in a new breed of gambler that has hitherto rarely visited physical casinos.
Miller opined that Atlantic City’s land casino problem was caused by too many operators in a more competitive environment as neighbouring states opened up rival land-based operations.
If the number of AC casinos were substantially reduced, the land market would improve, he said, at the same time acknowledging that persuading operators to do that would be difficult.
One thing Miller was sure about…”online gambling is here to stay.”
