Is New Jersey Online Gambling Driving Down Casino Revenue in Pennsylvania?
Forecasts for online gambling revenue in New Jersey may not quite be reaching targeted expectations but there could be an additional positive impact, at least where the Garden State is concerned.
Neighboring Pennsylvania casino revenues are now on the decline since New Jersey Internet gambling launched last November.
Pennsylvania has severely cut into New Jersey’s brick-and-mortar casino industry for nearly eight years.
Richard McGarvey, a spokesman with the Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board, claims it was the snow, not Web gambling in neighboring New Jersey that prevented its residents from getting to the casinos. For New Jersey, however, inclement weather conditions have little effect on the virtual gambling sector, in fact there is some evidence over the years that gamblers often become captive customers, unable to leave their homes during major snowstorms and frigid cold spells. One of the few things they can do is log onto their computers and start playing casino games or poker.
“From our part of view, we don’t know — it’s too early to tell if it’s having any impact,” McGarvey said. “There’s just no real good information on it, on who are the players, if they’re the kind of people who go to casinos or not.”
The Pennsylvania casino sector suffered another blow last month after it was determined that a company-wide hacking of the Sands Las Vegas sites went through the Sands property in Bethlehem, PA. Sands customer credit card information had been compromised during the hacking.
- Gilbert Horowitz, Gambling911.com
