Total gaming revenue for casinos in Atlantic City was down in November of 2016, year over year. Unless you take out revenue for the now shuttered Trump Taj Mahal, then it was up from November of 2015.
And that is the conundrum of analyzing New Jersey casino revenue in the short term, with one less casino in the mix.
NJ casino revenue down (or up?) from 2015
Here’s the top-line look at the NJ land-based casino industry: Revenue dropped from $191.1 million last November to $180.1 million this November. That’s a decrease of 5.8 percent year over year.
That certainly paints a bleak picture for the state of gaming revenue at AC casinos.
But, if you throw out the Trump Taj Mahal — which was open last November but closed this November — the picture looks a lot better. Revenue actually increased by one percent for the remaining seven AC casinos, as a group. It was largely the same story for October.
Total taxes on gaming revenue came out to $15.7 million for the state.
Winners and losers in AC
The biggest winner on the land-based side was Bally’s AC, which was up about a million dollars YoY to $16.3 million. Golden Nugget and Harrah’s both saw modest gains.
Borgata, which accounts for roughly a third of land-based gaming revenue in New Jersey, was basically flat at $57 million.
Caesars took a huge hit in November, down 12 percent to $21.3 million in revenue.
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NJ online gambling continues to be a bright spot
NJ online gambling has continued to prevent total gaming revenue from tumbling in the state.
Total online gambling revenue was $17.2 million in November, compared to $13.2 million in the prior period, an increase of 29.9 percent. This is the second-highest total for online gambling revenue in NJ history, just behind the $17.4 million generated in July of this year. It’s also up about a million dollars over October.
Almost all five of the iGaming operators in NJ eclipsed $3 million in revenue, with only Tropicana falling short of that mark.
Golden Nugget, which topped $4 million in iGaming revenue last month, slipped back to second place, a few thousand dollars behind Borgata ($3.8 million in revenue).