[toc]August was not exactly a banner month for the casinos of Atlantic City.
Poor showing for AC casinos
Casinos took in $230 million in revenue last month, down substantially from the tally in August of 2015 of $246 million. That’s a decrease of 6.7 percent year over year.
That was due in part to there being one less weekend in August of 2016, as compared to last August. But still, it was bad news for AC, which had hoped things were turning around.
July had painted a rosier picture of the outlook for casinos in the city, but August brought things back to reality that equilibrium may not have been reached yet. Still, for the year to date, casino revenue was up .2 percent for all of 2016 compared to the first eight months of 2015.
Internet gambling still doing well
Year-over-year revenue from NJ online gambling continues to be a success story.
Revenue from online casino games and poker was $16.1 million in August, compared to $12.2 million last August, reflecting an increase of 31.6 percent.
The bad news? From August to July, online casino revenue was down over $1.4 million, one of the first signs of weakness for iGaming in the state.
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Winners and losers
Pretty much everyone took it on the chin in August.
The only casino to post a sizable increase in revenue year-over-year was Tropicana, which took in $30.1 million, up $1.7 million. (Tropicana also saw a small gain on the online gambling side.)
Golden Nugget saw a moderate YoY increase of $200,000 on the land-based side, and $1.2 million on the online gambling side.
On the poker side, PokerStars did well as it neared its sixth month in the New Jersey market. It was up 15 percent over July.
Among the biggest losers?
- After a banner July, Borgata was down $5.5 million YoY.
- Trump Taj Mahal, which is scheduled to close its doors in October, was down more than $6 million in revenue from August of last year, to $13.7 million. That made it easily the worst casino in terms of revenue.
- Bally’s and Caesars both saw double-digit decreases in revenue YoY.