The New Jersey Division of Gaming Enforcement released the Atlantic City gambling statistics for December 2015 on Wednesday, noting that total gaming win from the Casino Hotels was $191.7 million compared to $190.5 million December 2014, a minimal rise of just 0.6 percent.
For the month, land casino win was $177.6 million, and Internet gaming win was $14 million, a record high and well up by 30.8 percent on the same period a year ago when the Internet win figure was $10.7 million.
Online poker contributed 14.1 percent of total Internet revenue (December 2014 – 19.2 percent) whilst online casino gaming delivered 85.9 percent (December 2014 – 80.8 percent).
Drilling down into the Internet numbers, it appears that online poker improved slightly on a monthly basis with revenues in December of $1.984 million vs. November 2015’s $1.913 million…a welcome rise of 3.5 percent. Online casino games improved by 6.7 percent at $12.06 million.
However, on a year-on-year comparison basis online poker is down 3.8 percent, significantly underperforming online casino ganing which showed a 39.2 percent improvement over the same period.
The Party Poker-Borgata-Pala alliance continued to lead in the online sector with a 28.2 percent market share, followed by 888-Caesar’s Interactive on 22.1 percent and the Tropicana on 20.4 percent.
Golden Nugget-BetFair also claimed a 20.4 percent share, whilst Resorts-NYX (which still awaits the arrival of Pokerstars) remained flat at 9.2 percent.
Comparing Atlantic City online gambling performance in 2014 with 2015, it appears that 2015 showed a 22 percent improvement at a total of almost $150 million (2014 FY- $122.9 million) with online casino gaming the main contributor with a 34.3 percent increase.
Online poker over the year, on the other hand, showed a marked 17.9 percent decline at $23.85 million.
The publication NJ.com reports that the Atlantic City land casino industry declined by 6.5 percent in 2015, and the $2.6 billion figure for the year was not only the ninth consecutive year of decline, but is just half of what the industry took in at the industry’s peak in 2006.