Summary: With sports betting operators merging into the online casino gaming sector, New Jersey still has room for operators.
When it comes to online gambling, the largest market in the United States can be found in New Jersey. The state has a ton of online casino gaming options along with online poker rooms, plus online sports betting. Many analysts were worried that as the market continued to grow, it would become oversaturated. However, that has not been the case. The market continues to thrive with no sign of slowing down.
Many sports betting operators that just started offering services in the state have moved into the online casino realm and have seen success. One such operator is FanDuel. The company started offering sports betting with their branded sports book. The FanDuel Sportsbook is operated by the FanDuel Group, which is owned by Paddy Power Betfair.
Beneficial Partnership
The online casino of Betfair has been able to benefit from the introduction of sports betting via FanDuel. The online casino has seen accelerated growth since FanDuel launched their online sportsbook. Betfair Casino first partnered with the Trump Plaza back in 2013 and were ready to get going with online gaming.
They would then switch to work with the Golden Nugget when it comes to online licensing, a super smart move on their part. In 2014, Betfair Casino began offering services via the Golden Nugget online license and they have seen success ever since. The Golden Nugget is the top operating online gaming license holder in the state, doing so well that they remain several million dollars ahead in revenues each and every month ahead of their second place competitor.
Now that sports betting is in the picture, the growth has continued. According to Paddy Power Betfair, the cross-sell to the Betfair Casino has been encouraging and has already contributed accelerated growth. The online casino market share for the Betfair brand increased to 15% by February.
The gross gaming revenues are also on an upswing. The company saw a 30% increase in 2017 for year on year and a 31% increase to $34 million in earnings for 2018. The brand will now include a sportsbook offering so the 2019 totals will see an increase as well, one that should be quite significant.
Casino Gaming for Sports Fans
With the cross-sell, players of FanDuel Sportsbook are provided with casino gaming promotions. Traffic from the sportsbook is heading to the casino, helping to provide more traffic to the Betfair Casino site. Customers who never thought about visiting and online casino are doing so thanks to their visit to the sportsbook site.
Since launching in September of last year, the FanDuel sportsbook in New Jersey has secured 100,000 in online members. With the brand connected to Betfair, shared account logins make it easy for players to move from the sportsbook to the online casino. With the seamless option, players are more likely to place a sports bet and play a casino game in one sitting.
Launching the shared account option was a smart move. Players will be more likely to visit the multiple sites than if they had to log out and log in via a different account. The ease of use will make players more willing to try the casino after visiting the sports book and vice versa.
It will be interesting to see the overall numbers of Betfair over the next few months and by years end. The integration of sports betting is sure to have a big impact on the overall numbers and could see the brand jump even further ahead of their competitors.
