ATLANTIC CITY, N.J. (AP) — New Jersey's red-hot internet gambling market continued to smash records in November, even as revenue inside physical casinos continued to lag behind pre-pandemic levels at six of Atlantic City's nine casinos, numbers released Monday show.
The New Jersey Division of Gaming Enforcement said internet gambling brought in just over $214 million in November, narrowly eclipsing the previous record of $213 million set a month earlier.
“The continuing success of online gaming and sports wagering has helped total gaming revenue achieve its best November monthly result in over a decade,” said James Plousis, chairman of the New Jersey Casino Control Commission.
But that's not necessarily great news for the casinos. They must share a substantial portion of internet and sports betting revenue with partners including sportsbooks and tech platforms.
For that reason, the casinos consider money won from in-person gamblers to be their core business. And that business has not been terrific for years now.
The casinos collectively matched their pre-pandemic in-person revenue total of $223.9 million in November. But only three casinos — Hard Rock, Ocean and Resorts, which barely exceeded its pre-pandemic level — won more from in-person gamblers in November than they did in Nov. 2019, before the COVID-19 outbreak began.
The continuing surge in internet gambling represents a trend that has been present in New Jersey for several years now. It was accelerated by the pandemic, which forced the casinos to close for 3 1/2 months in 2020 and pushed many people to online alternatives that they have continued to use even in the years after the outbreak waned.
November's $214 million in internet revenue was up nearly 25% from a year ago.
Jane Bokunewicz, director of the Lloyd Levenson Institute at Stockton University, which studies the Atlantic City gambling industry, noted that New Jersey's internet gambling market exceeded $200 million for the third month in a row.
When internet and sports betting revenue is included, the casinos, two horse tracks that take sports bets and their online and tech partners won $556 million in November, an increase of 15.4%. That was helped by two additional weekend days in November that did not occur in November 2023.
Borgata won a combined $122.6 million in November, up over 25% from a year earlier. Resorts won nearly $101 million, up nearly 28%; Golden Nugget won nearly $77 million, up 26%; Hard Rock won $63.5 million, up over 21%; Ocean won $39.8 million, up 8.6%; Bally's won $24.5 million, up over 24%; Harrah's won $18.5 million, down 4.4%; Tropicana won $16.6 million, down 7.3%, and Caesars won $16.5 million, down 7.4%.
In terms of in-person revenue only, Borgata won $57.5 million, up 11.4% from a year earlier; Hard Rock won $44.3 million, up 7.1%; Ocean won $34 million, up 8.2%; Harrah's won $18.5 million, down 5.6%; Tropicana won $16.7 million, down 6.6%; Resorts won $13.9 million, up nearly 12%; Golden Nugget won $11.7 million, up 6.7%, and Bally's won $10.8 million, down 10.3%.
Sports betting brought in nearly $119 million in revenue on $1.2 billion worth of bets.
The Meadowlands Racetrack in East Rutherford, just outside New York City, had $50.5 million in sports betting revenue, down 12.3% from a year ago. It has a FanDuel sportsbook on the premises.
Resorts, which is allied with DraftKings with a retail location and online operations, had nearly $38 million in sports betting revenue in November, nearly double the amount from a year earlier.
Monmouth Park in Oceanport, near the Jersey Shore, had $2.5 million in sports betting revenue. That was up 163% from a year earlier, undoubtedly helped by the recent cessation of sports betting operations at a competing track in the same county, Freehold Raceway, which is closing at the end of this month.
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A gambler smokes while playing a slot machine at the Hard Rock casino in Atlantic City, N.J., on Aug. 30, 2022. (AP Photo/Wayne Parry)
Gamblers play roulette at the Hard Rock casino in Atlantic City, N.J. on Aug. 8, 2022. (AP Photo/Wayne Parry)
A gambler touches the glass surface of a slot machine at the Hard Rock casino in Atlantic City, N.J. on Aug. 8, 2022. (AP Photo/Wayne Parry)
PALM BEACH, Fla. (AP) — In a freewheeling press conference at his Mar-a-Lago club, President-elect Donald Trump said Monday he would consider pardoning embattled New York Mayor Eric Adams, declared the country was “not going to lose" the polio vaccine and weighed in on the flurry of drone sightings over New Jersey.
Holding court with reporters for the first time since he won the election and secured a second term, Trump also called on the Biden administration to stop selling off unused portions of southern border wall, threatening legal action.
“We’re going to spend hundreds of millions of dollars more on building the same wall we already have,” he railed. “It’s almost a criminal act.”
Trump's performance Monday underscored how he has already forced his return to the center of the national political conversation, weeks before he is set to return to the Oval Office. The session was notably less combative than some of the more heated exchanges he held with reporters during the campaign. Trump, looking relaxed at the lectern, joked with those he recognized and talked about how much easier the transition has been than after his first election.
“The first time everybody was fighting me,” he said. “This time everyone wants to be my friend.”
After spending most of the last few weeks mostly behind closed doors at Mar-a-Lago, Trump used the session to test-drive policy ideas, attack his enemies and issue warnings of what is to come.
That included the threat of a lawsuit against famed Iowa pollster Ann Selzer, whose final survey before the election badly underestimated Trump's support in the state, which he won.
“In my opinion it was fraud and election interference," Trump claimed of the survey. Selzer, who declined to comment, announced that she would retire her polling operation last month but said she had decided to before the election.
ABC News announced over the weekend that had it agreed to pay $15 million toward Trump's presidential library to settle a defamation lawsuit he had filed over anchor George Stephanopoulos’ inaccurate on-air assertion that the president-elect had been found civilly liable for raping a writer.
Continuing his threats of legal action, Trump railed Monday against the Biden administration over the border wall material sales, saying he has spoken to Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton and other Texas officials about a potential restraining order.
Congress last year required the Biden administration to dispose of the unused border wall pieces. The measure, included in the massive National Defense Authorization Act, allows for the sale or donation of the items to states on the southern border, providing they are used to refurbish existing barriers, not install new ones. Congress also directed the Pentagon to account for storage costs for the border wall material while it has gone unused.
“I’m asking today, Joe Biden, to please stop selling the wall,” Trump said.
The Department of Defense, however, said that further sales can't be blocked because all the excess border wall material has already been distributed. Most was provided to other federal agencies and state governments, as required by defense legislation signed on Dec. 22, 2023. The rest was sold to GovPlanet, which buys and auctions off government surplus.
While Trump described the handover between Biden and his incoming team as “a friendly transition,” he also took issue with efforts to allow some members of the federal workforce to continue working from home. Trump said that if government workers don’t come back into the office under him, they will be dismissed.
Trump also weighed in on Adams, who is facing federal fraud and corruption charges. Asked whether he would consider pardoning Adams, Trump said, “Yeah I would."
“I think that he was treated pretty unfairly,” Trump said, while at the same time acknowledging he doesn't "know the facts.”
Adams has been accused of accepting flight upgrades and other luxury travel perks valued at $100,000 along with illegal campaign contributions from a Turkish official and other foreign nationals looking to buy his influence. He has pleaded not guilty. Multiple members of his administration have also come under investigation.
Adams, who insists he did nothing wrong, told reporters Monday that his attorney was “going to look at every avenue to ensure I get justice."
Trump was pressed repeatedly on the future of vaccines, amid concerns over his decision to choose the anti-vaccine advocate, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., to lead the Department of Health and Human Services, which regulates the shots.
Trump again declined to dismiss the long-debunked theory that vaccines cause autism and said Kennedy would be examining that already well-studied question.
But he also assured the public that one of the most successful vaccines would not be barred by his administration.
“You’re not going to lose the polio vaccine,” he said, calling himself “a big believer in it.”
“That’s not going to happen," he said.
Outgoing Republican leader Mitch McConnell, who had polio as a child, had said Friday that Trump’s nominees seeking Senate confirmation should “steer clear” of efforts to discredit the polio vaccine, calling them not just uninformed, but “dangerous.”
Trump also weighed in on the mysterious drone sightings over parts of New Jersey and the eastern U.S. that have sparked speculation and concern over where they are coming from.
Taking a conspiratorial tone, Trump insisted, without offering evidence, that, “the government knows what is happening."
“Our military knows and our president knows and for some reason they want to keep people in suspense,” he said, refusing to say whether he had been briefed on the sightings.
Trump has spent the weeks since his victory building out his incoming administration and speaking with what he said were well over 100 word leaders.
But he again played coy on whether that list included Russian President Vladimir Putin.
“I’m not going to comment on the Putin question," he said.
When it comes to escalating tensions in the Middle East, Trump said he would consider pulling U.S. troops out of Syria after the country's ousted leader, Bashar Assad, was overthrown by rebels.
“I don’t think that I want to have our soldiers killed,” Trump said of the 900 men and women who were placed there to prevent a resurgence of the Islamic State group.
In addition to meetings with foreign leaders, Trump also talked about a recent dinner with Apple CEO Tim Cook as well as the heads of major pharmaceutical companies, which Kennedy joined. The outreach, he said, made this transition feel markedly different from 2016, when his win shocked the Washington establishment.
Trump was joined at the appearance by SoftBank Group CEO Masayoshi Son, who announced that the Japanese company is planning to invest $100 billion in U.S. projects over the next four years.
It was a win for Trump, who has used the weeks since the election to promote his policies, negotiate with foreign leaders and try to strike deals.
In a post on his Truth Social site last week, Trump had said that anyone making a $1 billion investment in the United States “will receive fully expedited approvals and permits, including, but in no way limited to, all Environmental approvals.”
“GET READY TO ROCK!!!” he wrote.
Trump has repeatedly boasted that he has done more in his short transition period than his predecessor did in all four years.
“There’s a whole light over the entire world," he said Monday. “There’s a light shining over the world."
President-elect Donald Trump speaks during a news conference at Mar-a-Lago, Monday, Dec. 16, 2024, in Palm Beach, Fla. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)
President-elect Donald Trump speaks during a news conference at Mar-a-Lago, Monday, Dec. 16, 2024, in Palm Beach, Fla. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)
President-elect Donald Trump speaks during a news conference at Mar-a-Lago, Monday, Dec. 16, 2024, in Palm Beach, Fla. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)
President-elect Donald Trump speaks during a news conference at Mar-a-Lago, Monday, Dec. 16, 2024, in Palm Beach, Fla. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)
President-elect Donald Trump speaks during a news conference at Mar-a-Lago, Monday, Dec. 16, 2024, in Palm Beach, Fla. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)
President-elect Donald Trump speaks during a news conference at Mar-a-Lago, Monday, Dec. 16, 2024, in Palm Beach, Fla. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)
