New Jersey’s online and retail sportsbooks came close to hitting the US$500m barrier in October, with further growth forecast due to the tip-off of the basketball season.
Sportsbooks in the state accepted a record $487m in bets last month, an 87 per cent jump from $260.7m in October 2018, according to official reporting. October’s handle beat the previous record of $445.6m set in September.
Dustin Gouker, lead analyst at PlayNJ.com, said: “New Jersey has a real shot at surpassing Nevada again, if not in October, some time before the end of the NFL season.
“The state’s handle is growing at a pace near 100 per cent, year-over-year. And the overlapping of football and basketball should propel New Jersey into new territory.”
October’s bets yielded a record $46.4m in revenue, up from $11.7m the previous year and breaking the record of $37.9m set last month. October revenue generated $5.7m in taxes and pushed the state’s sports betting industry past the $300m mark ($331.2m) in lifetime revenue.
New Jersey’s October handle will likely fall short of Nevada – which generated $528.5m in October 2018 and will announce October 2019 data later this month – for the second straight month. Combined, the two largest US markets are generating $1bn a month in bets.
And the Garden State could use the popularity of basketball, which has generated $698.2m in bets so far in 2019, the most of any sport, to propel it past Nevada once again.
