Online gaming is off to a famously slow start but NJ was never going to be that material, by itself. We care about poker share.
More people probably know that the New Jersey online business is off to a slower start than do people in New Jersey who even know online gambling even exists. Polls indicate very little awareness of online gambling in New Jersey. That puts the paltry $10m of February online gaming revenue in perspective. Marketing will improve awareness and grow revenues but the impact to New Jersey leaders BYD and CZR will never be more than some additional pocket change. The future is interstate poker. That’s why we’re paying more attention to Poker market share than online $s.
According to the latest poll, only 3% of New Jersey residents who are gamblers in Atlantic City actually have gambled online. State awareness is atrocious and that explains the chart below:
So why do we care more about online Poker share? Poker is probably the only form of gaming that will go national, either through interstate compacts or, finally, federal legislation. At the end of the day, it’s all about player liquidity, and the first movers in the most populous state with online poker will have a huge competitive advantage. New Jersey is a real state in terms of population vs Nevada and Delaware, the only other 2 states with legalized online gambling. As can be seen in the following chart, Borgata (BYD/MGM) leads with CZR (World Series of Poker) a close 2nd. These are the leaders as we head into the slow process of nationalizing online poker
