Online poker revenue increased in Delaware for the month of July, posting a gain of 23% when compared to the previous month.
That’s a positive sign for the smallest regulated market in the U.S., whose numbers are often overlooked. New Jersey seems to be the state that many look to as the online poker and gambling testing ground.
However, there is also information to be learned from analyzing Delaware despite the state’s small population. A little more than 900,000 call The First State home, yet new player sign-ups continue to stream in consistently at Delaware’s Internet poker and gambling websites.
Another 410 players created new accounts at sites offered by Dover Downs, Delaware Park and Harrington Raceway. That number of new players was a slight improvement over each of April, May and June.
Revenue from online poker totaled $31,397.57 collectively, with Delaware Park coming in as the people’s choice by grabbing $18,787.65 of that total. Poker rake and fees came to $9,815.52 at Dover Downs in July, while Harrington Raceway accounted for $2,794.40.
Delaware, like New Jersey, also offers online casino action to its residents. Unfortunately, revenue was down in July compared to the numbers posted in June. The entire Delaware igaming market pulled in $173,096.40 in the year’s seventh month, a figure that represents proceeds from online poker, table games and video lottery.
That’s down slightly from the $187,332.18 that the [geolink href=”https://www.usafriendlypokersites.com/delaware-ipoker-revenue-descends-new-low-june/”]Delaware State Lottery reported as revenue in June[/geolink]. On the bright side, July’s total was higher than four months of the nine that the state’s online poker and gambling scheme has been operating.
It’s important to note that regulated Internet gambling remains in its infancy among the three states that have taken the plunge, with revenue totals expected to improve when more states enact legislation and eventually partner up to offer online poker on an interstate basis. [geolink href=”https://www.usafriendlypokersites.com/nevada-delaware-compact-may-game-changer/”]Delaware has already partnered with Nevada[/geolink], but the launch has yet to commence.
While the anti-online gambling crowd continues to point to somewhat low revenue totals coming from Delaware, Nevada and New Jersey as a reason why Internet gambling should be banned, those critics may be missing the point. Perhaps more important is the fact that Delaware and the others have achieved regulatory success, providing safeguards for consumers that were not evident in an unregulated market.
Delaware officials knew before approving online poker and gambling legislation that revenue totals would not fly off the page. How could those totals be large with a population less than one million? So the naysayers will likely continue to criticize, but Internet gambling is here to stay and will spread to other states in the future, albeit rather slowly.
