Certainly, New Jersey sportsbooks anticipated a revenue boost once football season kicked off.
Yet even SugarHouse Online Sportsbook & Casino has to shake its head, if only a bit, at a pleasant September surprise.
According to a press release from SugarHouse, revenue for its sportsbook and online casino more than doubled between August and September. NJ sports betting played a large role in that jump.
And Mattias Stetz, COO of Rush Street Interactive, which operates SugarHouse, agreed. From the release:
“We’re very happy with the numbers we are seeing. We see that the player base is continuing to grow as the word spreads about the quality and volume of the different live in-game bets at PlaySugarHouse.com. We are at the start of the football season and are excited to see our numbers keep climbing.”
SugarHouse Sportsbook and in-game betting
In late August, shortly after rolling out its mobile SugarHouse Sportsbook, Stetz anticipated the popularity of in-game wagering. He noted how sports in the US seemed tailor-made for such a format.
True to form, Philadelphia-based SugarHouse has ridden the shoulders of in-game betting to a big month of NJ sports betting revenue in September.
Per the release, the onset of the NFL season led to an eye-opening increase in the number of wagers, more than double the amount bet prior to kickoff on Sept. 6.
SugarHouse Sportsbook boasts itself as offering the most in-game betting options of all eight NJ online sportsbooks. That leads Rush Street to believe that accepted wagers will “continue to escalate.”
The company claims to have the most in-game betting options of the eight New Jersey online sportsbooks. Accordingly, the browser-based sportsbook saw its volume of in-game betting double after the NFL season began.
As it is the most popular sport in America, football proved to be the most popular sport on which to wager for SugarHouse Sportsbook. At least 50 betting options exist on the sportsbook.
That variety, the release said, “are interesting to our players and we expect live betting will grow in the future.”
Among the reasons why: More than 80 percent of all mobile wagers made came via the SugarHouse mobile app, while a majority of bets were in-game.
Perspective on revenue jump
September revenue figures were not included in the release. The NJ Division of Gaming Enforcement will release those numbers later this week.
That said, consider revenue totals from August.
The SugarHouse Sportsbook operated for just over a week that month and collected $103,324 in revenue. Doubling that does not seem too difficult for the sportsbook.
Arguably, though, it was the SugarHouse online casino that saw a noticeable jump in revenue. In August, Golden Nugget, whose license SugarHouse uses to operate in the Garden State, totaled $8,172,508 in online gambling revenue.
For his part, Stetz pointed out that the nascent NJ sports betting market has driven an increase in online casino participation.
“Our casino bets have also grown since the launch of sports betting,” he said in the release. “Thanks to the deep integration of the sportsbook and the casino in both Android and iOS mobile apps and the desktop site, and players being able to use the same account and wallet, PlaySugarHouse.com casino has also grown across the board.”
Wait and see on NJ sports betting revenue
As noted above, the DGE is scheduled to release NJ online gambling and sports wagering revenue figures Friday.
Certainly, NJ sports betting numbers should see unprecedented, perhaps even unimaginable, heights. After all, football season is in full swing and the MLB closed its regular season, giving way to the postseason.
On top of that, eight mobile sportsbooks, complementing eight retail sites, operate in New Jersey.