February Chills Mean Digital Thrills in New Jersey

New Jersey gamblers continue to prefer to play on their phones versus braving an unusually cold and icy winter to make the trip to one of the state’s nine land-based casinos in Atlantic City. This was the fourth straight month that iGaming revenue trumped land-based casinos.

The $252 million in revenue was down a bit from last month’s $259 million, but of course the calendar was 3 days shorter. That was good for a still very healthy 21.2% increase from February of 2025. FanDuel continues to run away from the rest with $58 million posted in February, up 31% YOY.

DraftKings, BetMGM, and Borgata all fell back off the pace. DraftKings grew to $45 million up 5.1% and BetMGM broke $30 million for a respectable third up 8%. Borgata came in at $21 million, up 5%. What’s interesting is that these top tier operators not only couldn’t keep anywhere near up with FanDuel’s impressive showing but that their hungry competitors nipping at their heels also showed much higher growth rates.

Caesars Digital, recently highlighted as an AI frontrunner in iGaming earlier this week, grew revenue to nearly $19 million, up 27%. Hard Rock Bet posted $16 million up a whopping 62% and one of the fastest growing operators in every iGaming state right now, Bet Fanatics kept their foot on the gas with $12 million in revenue, up 172%. In this market at least, it would seem high single digit growth is simply falling behind.

Sports Sharps

It was a sharp contrast on the sports betting side however, due to some player favorable outcomes in both the Super Bowl early in the month, and NCAA college basketball later in the month, total revenue fell just over 10%. Overall betting on the Super Bowl was lackluster to begin with, coming in at $126 million this year against last year’s $168 million. Total handle for the month was $846 million.

Of the $65 million total gross revenue from online sports betting it’s important to understand the dominance of the two biggest operators. FanDuel alone did almost $30 million of that total, though that was down 12% from last year. Then DraftKings kicked in another $17 million, also down double digits, with a 15% decline. That’s around 70% of the market combined with the two biggest books.

There is a hard fought battle for third though. BetMGM was the winner by a nose in February with nearly $4.8 million, though that was off 18.8% from prior year. bet365 managed to bring in $4.6 million, an actual increase of 16%, and Bet Fanatics showed remarkable growth on the sports betting side as well, up just over 30% to $4.5 million.

Digging in the Dirt

Let’s be clear, the weather didn’t play into the hands of the land-based casino operators in February. Record breaking snowfall of almost 20 inches in not only Atlantic City itself, but more than a foot in feeder markets like Philadelphia and Chester left traffic at a standstill for days. So, to be down less than 1% was actually a win. 

Total revenue was almost $203 million with $152 million coming from slots and another $51 million from table games. Borgata is the undisputed king of land based gaming down the shore and they posted $53 million in revenue for the month, an almost 7% gain, but this was almost entirely due to a 27% increase in the always volatile month to month table games win.

The perennial squabble for second place between Hard Rock and Oceans was even closer than usual this month. Hard Rock declined 14% but still managed to hang on to $35.9 million to just edge out Oceans’s $35.4 million which was a 9% improvement.

Sunnier days are ahead for the resort town though, with a usual bounce back in traffic in March before the long hot days of summer come round once again. Still though the roll out of Class 3 slots and table games at Resort’s World in Queens in New York is believed to finally get under way next month as well.

The impact that might have is as of yet undetermined, but it's possible that the city’s famed Steel Pier may not be the only place offering a whip-neck roller coaster ride the next few months as revenue forecasts remain all over the place.