If there were any doubts about New Jersey’s dominance as the sports betting capital of the country, all those doubts were erased in 2020. 202o was unlike any year that we’ve experienced and it made for some very interesting highlights.

Even with all the unprecedented restrictions and challenges experienced in the year, New Jersey still managed to have a somewhat great year. Some of the major highlights of the 202o sports betting year include:

Sports were suspended temporarily

It was Rudy Gobert’s positive test in March 2020 that led to the series of suspensions in the sports season, starting with the NBA season. Within hours of the NBA league suspension, several other sports leagues followed suit resulting in delays and canceled events that created a huge hole in the spring schedule.

The NBA, alongside many other sports leagues in the country, remained suspended for 141 days before finally resuming. Like the NBA, the NHL did not resume its season until mid-summer while Major League Baseball only resumed with a condensed 60-day-game schedule in late July.

The cancellation of sports contributed to numerous losses amounting to billions. For instance, the cancellation of Match Madness led to the loss of more than $1 billion in projected sports wagering handle among legal sportsbooks countrywide. By the end of March, it’s not just sports leagues that had suspended operations.

To deal with the absence of live sports, new Jersey punters had to get creative. Bettors in the state were betting on everything from Korean baseball to marble racing. Documentaries such as Michael Jordan’s “The Last Dance and Netflix’s Tiger King also provided some reprieve for bettors jonesing for some betting action.

The good news is that the unique sports calendar in 2020 helped to create a resurgence in sports betting over the last several months of the year, By September, all 4 major American professional sports leagues had returned simultaneously for the first time in sports scheduling history.

Physical sportsbooks and casinos remained shut down for months

For the first time, famed gambling cities such as Vegas and Atlantic City shut down operations entirely for the first time in decades. For months, almost every tribal and commercial casino in the state remained shut off to the public.

Because sports betting options were only limited to niche sports such sumo wrestling, and offshore table tennis, as well as soccer, numerous bettors withdrew their accounts, leading to an estimated loss of almost $500 million for sportsbooks countrywide.

As you can expect in-person gambling suffered greatly in 2020 as a result of shutoffs and restrictions. In-person casinos and sportsbooks saw their revenue numbers plummet significantly during the pandemic restrictions. The revenue from slot machines and table games inside the city’s 9 casinos came was $146.5 million by November, a decrease of almost 35% from the same time last year (November 2019).

Monthly sports records abound

New Jersey’s streak of sports wagering records persisted until the end of the year. In November, New Jersey punters had wagered more than $931 million on sports, the latest in a long string of records that were set by the rapidly expanding sports betting market. As the 2021 sports betting year begins, the Garden State is expected to finally cross the $1 billion monthly revenue mark.

November’s huge record was the fourth consecutive month that the sports betting industry in New Jersey had set a national record. November’s numbers surpassed the $803 million record that was recorded in October. The city’s casinos, the 3 horse tracks that offer sports betting, and the flourishing iGaming industry will continue to expand as the pandemic begins to fizzle out.

As things are, physical casinos are still operating at a reduced 25% of capacity a situation which is expected to remain until infection cases are eliminated. The surging cases of infections experienced during the last 3 months of the year also drove away business considerably during the last months of the year.

However, this did not stop casino properties and sportsbooks from continuing to serve their customers diligently while adhering to the mitigation directives established by the governor. If you would like to discover more about New Jersey’s revenue for 2020, learn more here: https://www.njgamblingfun.com/nj/nj-sports-betting.

Internet gambling shone and will continue to shine in 2021

While in-person revenue continued to suffer, internet gambling, on the other hand, experienced a comeback in 2020. IGaming provided almost $92 million in revenue in November 2020, a boost of almost 87% compared to the same period in November 2019. The 2 online-only operators that saw the most gains during this period were Resorts Digital that saw an increase of 77% to record $35.6 million while Caesars Interactive recorded $8 million, a boost of almost 76%.

Had it not been for online casinos, the state’s casino finances would have been much worse. Online gambling has continued to grow in New Jersey during the contagion as most gamblers now prefer to gamble from their phones or laptops rather than in person as it is much safer. Today, more than 80% of all sports wagering is done online in the Garden State.

The number of mergers and acquisitions increased significantly in 2020

Several remarkable mergers and acquisitions occurred in 2020 to shape the face of the industry in the coming years. Some of the most notable M&As include Caesars Entertainment’s cash acquisition of the English bookmaker William Hill. Caesars acquired William Hill for approximately $3.7 billion. This acquisition will be finalized in the first half of the year 2020 once regulatory approval is given.

And it’s not just operators that were changing the face of the industry. Numerous partnerships were also formed between major sportsbooks and broadcast networks. For instance, NBCUniversal signed a 5-year partnership deal with PointsBet earlier on in August 2020. Other similar partnerships include deals made between:

·  William Hill and CBS Sports

·  BetMGM and Yahoo

·  FOX Bet and the Stars Group

·  Flutter Entertainment and the Stars Group

Such widespread partnerships and consolidation moves will prevail in 2021 as sportsbooks and media entities look to increase their visibility in the super crowded New Jersey sports betting market.

Final thoughts

As New Jersey continues to establish its standing as an unstoppable force in the US sports betting market, punters in the state should expect things to improve in 2021. In total, there are 18 states in the country offering some form of legalized sports wagering. As more and more states consider legalizing sports wagering, New Jersey will want to do everything possible to maintain its lead at the top of the leaderboard.

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