A somewhat familiar name will be attempting to fill the small void in the New Jersey online gambling market created by the departure of Barstool Casino.
Hollywood Online Casino is set to replace Barstool in a mature market already dominated by established operators. Penn Entertainment owns the Hollywood Casino brand and will be introducing its online casino in NJ in the coming weeks.
The digital platform change came with last week’s announcement last week of a 10-year, $2 billion deal between Penn and ESPN that will bring ESPN Bet mobile sportsbook to NJ this fall.
Hollywood Online Casino and ESPN Bet are replacing Barstool Sportsbook & Casino. Neither digital Barstool product did particularly well in NJ, based on publicly available data.
NJ online casino market is pretty well-established at this point
Hollywood Online Casino NJ will operate under Resort Digital Gaming’s license. The RDG license is also used by Resorts, Mohegan Sun and DraftKings to offer online casino gaming in NJ.
New Jersey gambling regulators do not report revenue figures for individual operators. Monthly and quarterly reports are grouped together under licensees, such as RDG.
Through June of this year, the operators under RDG — referred to as online skins — have collectively reported more than $240 million in revenue. It is PlayNJ‘s understanding that Resorts Online Casino, Mohegun Sun Casino and DraftKings Casino NJ are responsible for the bulk of the licensee revenue. Meanwhile, Barstool’s share represented less than 10% of the total.
Only Borgata (BetMGM, Wheel of Fortune, Pala, Party) – which reported $251 million – and Golden Nugget (FanDuel, BetRivers and Betway) – with it’s reported $246.7 million – generated more in the first half of the year.
Modest expectations for Hollywood Online Casino in NJ
While ESPN is a much more recognizable brand than Barstool, the same cannot be said of Hollywood Casino.
Neither Penn nor Hollywood is a household casino name in NJ, where online gambling giants such as MGM, Golden Nugget, Caesars and Hard Rock reign supreme. The two dominant sports betting brands, FanDuel and DraftKings, also control a significant portion of the internet gambling market in NJ.
A standalone Hollywood Online Casino app is unlikely to compete against the larger operators in the state.
It could, however, perform in a manner comparable to Stardust Online Casino or SugarHouse Online Casino, two brands with loyal, albeit limited, customer bases.
