The State of Gaming in New Jersey
KW: no deposit
Title: The State of Gaming in New Jersey
Summary: As one city in New Jersey becomes a haven for online gaming, another popular city is losing ground. Is online gaming to blame?
Opposers of online gaming have long contended that it would be the fall of land-based casinos, and now, at least on paper, it looks like they were right.
Jersey City, six months into legalized online gambling, has been named as the most active city for online gaming. This could be in part to no deposit promotions that some sites are running. The previous holder of the record, Toms River, was recently bumped down on the list to make way for Jersey City.
The average user spends around 43 minutes per gambling site, and for poker sites, users spend about 75 minutes on the site. Jersey City also made the top 20 in terms of the largest betters.
An hour and a half up the coast, however, is a completely different story.
Atlantic City has long been a casino lover’s paradise. There are twelve casinos in the city alone. Over the next two months, though, that number could drop to nine.
The change is in no way related to online gaming, though. As stated in other articles, online gambling is a supplement to casinos. The decline of Atlantic City is something that has been going on since 2006. Back then, Atlantic City was pulling in roughly $5.2 billion annually. Last year, Atlantic City generated a little more than half of that, $2.86 billion.
Don Guardian, the Mayor of Atlantic City, isn’t worried.
“Although it’s sad today, it’s part of the transition that Atlantic City needs to have. There is pain as we go through this transition, but it’s critical for Atlantic City to realize that we are no longer the monopoly of gaming on the East Coast. We’re just going through a difficult time,” he said, shortly after it was announced that the Showboat, a casino that has stood in Atlantic City since 1987.
It wasn’t a question of if, it was a question of when. Gaming is prevalent along the East Coast, so when you have a single city that has twelve casinos, it’s eventually going to have to downsize.
This is where online gaming is going to help. Through online gaming, New Jersey is going to continue to generate a ton of revenue. The best thing about online gaming is that it’s available in the entire state, so while gas costs continue to rise, players can still stay indoors and play casino games, and the state will still get the money.
As we go forward, it won’t be surprising if even more casinos shut down. Again, it’s not a direct result of online gaming – this is a case of cities building too many casinos and overestimating the need. You should fully expect opponents of online gambling, such as Sheldon Adelson, to use the closing of some casinos in an argument against online gaming.