New Jersey rules once again with sports gambling

The Garden State has seen over $3 billion in sports wagers this year

In the first nine months of the year, New Jersey saw a total of $3 billion in sports bets. Considering that Nevada took in $5 billion in all of 2018, and that state has a much more mature sports gambling industry, the response speaks volumes of what’s coming down the pipe for sports gambling in the US. New Jersey’s handle last month set a new record and this is just the beginning.

According to the New Jersey Division of Gaming Enforcement, September saw $445.6 million; its previous best was $385 million from this past January. In September of last year, the handle was just $184 million. This reflects a change in sports gambling availability, coming from 17 new mobile sportsbooks apps having been introduced since last year.

The sports gambling revenue for the month was $37.9 million, an increase of 59.3% above the $23.8 million from a year earlier. It still may not be at the same level as Nevada, which saw $571 million in September 2018, but New Jersey is catching up fast.

Leading the way in the Garden State is FanDuel. It operates in coordination with the Meadowlands Racetrack, and also runs the PointsBet NJ gambling site, and took in $16.9 million – $9.7 million more than a year earlier. Resorts Online took in just over $11 million, making it the second-most popular sports gambling operator. Next was Monmouth with $3.36 million.

Chris Christie, the former governor of New Jersey and the man responsible for the Supreme Court’s reversal of PASPA, recently spoke at the annual Global Gaming Expo in Las Vegas, where he talked about how far along the sports gambling industry has become. Given his repeated efforts to get the court to change his mind – at least four cases went before the judges – and the amount of resources dedicated to the campaign, Christie apparently understood well what sports gambling would do for the state.