Hey, New York — look what you’re missing out on!
Betting on the Super Bowl and the Oscars was legal for the first time in New Jersey this year — leading to big bucks in extra waging at the Garden State’s casinos, according to numbers released by the New Jersey Division of Gaming Enforcement.
The casinos took in a total revenue of $241.2 million in February, from both sports betting and regular games. That’s a roughly 25 percent increase over the $192.1 million made in February 2018, before sports wagering and betting on things like the Oscars were made legal across the Hudson.
The 2019 Academy Awards alone had folks putting up $747,696 on all the categories, with the amount paid out to winners totaling $565,179.
That means sports books made $182,517 off Hollywood’s biggest night. Oscars betting is believed to have brought more women to the party than regular sports betting, as well.
Meanwhile, the Super Bowl took in $34,894,900 in wagering.
Casino’s however paid out $39,469,147 to gamblers, meaning the betting operations took some $5 million in losses on the Feb. 3 showdown between the New England Patriots and Los Angeles Rams.
The 10 retail sports books and 13 online sports-betting platforms in the state took in $12.7 million in revenue in February and paid out about $1.6 million in taxes.
That’s a down-tick from the $18,774,940 earned in January.
But experts say a slight dip is always expected in February as there are fewer NFL games to place wagers on.
“February is typically slower than all the preceding months for sports betting, just because there are fewer football games to bet on than in January, if you look at how Nevada has done historically,” explained Dustin Gouker, lead sports betting analyst for PlayUSA.com, a website dedicated to online gambling news.
Since legal sports betting opened in the state in June 2018, more than $1.6 billion has been made in wagers, with sports books racking in $112 million and the state keeping about $14 million in taxes, according to data compiled by PlayNJ.com.
The biggest month for Jersey betting could still be on the horizon thanks to the college basketball March Madness tournament.
In New York, meanwhile, lawmakers are still trying to come up with a work-around to make legalization of sports betting in Empire State casinos pass constitutional muster.
Additional reporting by Carl Campanile