Sports betting grows in New Jersey, but Monmouth's share declines

Betting on sports in New Jersey more than doubled from June to July as more sportsbooks opened in the state, according to figures released by the New Jersey Division of Gaming Enforcement on Tuesday, but the expansion of legal outlets appears to have taken a toll on business at Monmouth Park in Oceanport, which opened the first sportsbook in the state in June.

Total sports betting in New Jersey has been $57.1 million, according to the division’s figures. Although the gambling enforcement division did not release a precise figure for July, total sports betting in June, the first month in which locations in the state took sports wagers, was $16.4 million, meaning the July total was $40.7 million, an increase of 143 percent.

Five locations in New Jersey took bets in July, although one of the locations in Atlantic City opened on July 30. The sportsbook at the Meadowlands, the harness track that is located just over the Hudson River from Manhattan, opened on July 14, while three other locations, including Monmouth, took sports bets all month.

Monmouth Park took in approximately half of all wagers in New Jersey in June, when it was one of only two locations open for the last half of the month, but revenue figures for the five locations operating in July suggest that Monmouth’s market share dropped significantly in the month, to 22.3 percent, according to the division’s figures. Monmouth Park’s specific revenue figure for July also declined significantly compared to the revenue figure provided for the division for Monmouth in June.

Dennis Drazin, the president of the management company that operates Monmouth Park on behalf of the state’s Thoroughbred horsemen’s group, said on Wednesday that sports wagering suffered some in July from a lack of attractive content, citing the end of the World Cup tournament, Major League Baseball’s all-star break, and little interest in pre-season football games.

“We still had a healthy appetite for wagering,” Drazin said. “But pre-season football is not something to get excited about. The real betting is going to start when the NFL season begins.”

Drazin said he did not have precise figures for July handle at the Monmouth sports book. He also disputed the way that some other sportsbook locations reported their figures to the division of gambling enforcement, suggesting that the numbers may be revised in the future.

“This is all new to everyone, and I think that there is a lot of apples-to-oranges comparisons going on,” Drazin said.

The division of gambling enforcement said total revenue to Monmouth Park from its sports-betting operation has been $3.1 million, with $856,000 of that total being generated in July. However, Drazin had taken issue with how the revenue numbers were reported in June, because the division counted all future bets that had not yet been paid off, such as bets on NFL teams to win the Super Bowl, as revenue. While the division said Monmouth had $2.2 million in revenue in June, Drazin said that Monmouth actually had close to $1 million in revenue.

The Meadowlands, which opened its sportsbook on July 14, led all locations in the state by revenue for the month of July, with $1.36 million, according to the division of gambling enforcement, generating approximately one-third of the total amount for the five locations in the state. The Meadowlands, which is operating its sportsbook in partnership with the fantasy-sports contest company FanDuel, is expected to become the highest-grossing sportsbook location in New Jersey due to its proximity to the New York metropolitan area.