New Jersey bet market approaches $1 billion

ATLANTIC CITY, N.J.» New Jersey’s sports betting market is closing in on the $1 billion dollar mark after less than six months of operation.

Figures released Wednesday by the state Division of Gaming Enforcement show New Jersey’s casino and racetrackbased sports books took in over $330 million worth of bets in November.

Since sports betting began in mid-June, gamblers in the state have plunked down $928 million on sports events.

Jeff Gural, who runs the Meadowlands Racetrack in East Rutherford, near New York City, isn’t surprised at how quickly the market is growing.

“I was there Sunday, and the place was packed,” he said. “So many of those games went right down to the last minute. It was really exciting.”

He expects the track’s sports book will do even better once self-serve betting kiosks are installed around New Year’s Day to increase the number of betting portals.

FanDuel, which runs the Meadowlands sports book, called November “a historymaking month” in which it doubled its revenue from the previous month.

New Jersey is at least putting itself in the same conversation as Nevada when it comes to sports betting. Nevada, which has offered legal sports betting for years, took in $1.8 billion worth of sports bets from midJune through the end of October. For Delaware, that figure was $54.4 million.

Mississippi, which began sports betting in August, saw $70.8 million in bets between August and October, and West Virginia took in $9 million in bets from mid-August through mid-October.

Pennsylvania and Rhode Island just began sports betting in recent weeks.

New Jersey won a U.S. Supreme Court case in May clearing the way for all 50 states to offer legal sports betting should they chose to do so.

The $21.2 million that New Jersey sports books kept after paying out winning bets and accounting for expenses, along with another strong month of internet gambling, helped Atlantic City’s casinos post an increase of nearly 25 percent in gambling revenue in November, compared with a year ago.

The casinos won $257 million from gamblers in November. Internet gambling revenue was nearly $27 million, up nearly 31 percent from a year ago.