Virgin casino revenue up 20% in New Jersey on wider betting growth

Gamesys’ New Jersey Virgin Casino revenue grew 20% year-on-year in 2019 on the state’s wider sports betting push.

Although Virgin does not operate a betting app in the US, Gamesys CEO Lee Fenton believes the vertical’s wider growth in NJ has boosted acquisition and engagement for the casino vertical.

“The push on sports betting in the market, particularly in New Jersey, has led to a greater awareness and greater trust of online gaming generally,” Fenton told investors.

“[We’re] seeing online gaming now as more acceptable, and generally that is seeing us push up acquisition numbers, increasing engagement, and being able to see an uptick in revenue.”

New Jersey revenue for the year was included in ‘Rest of World’, which accounted for 2% of the group’s overall revenue.

However, overall ROW revenue was down 22% on the previous year to $20.2m on the firm pulling out of Denmark, Switzerland and Austria during the period.

Eilers & Krejcik Gaming estimates that Virgin has a 2.4% share of the NJ gaming market, making it the 12th largest online casino per revenue in 2019.

Fenton said the group was considering moving into further gaming states, which at present include Pennsylvania and potentially West Virginia as of the summer.

“The US remains profitable for us [and] we continue to seek ways to expand our operations to other states as the legislative roadmap for our gaming expansion firms up in the US,” he said.

On increased competition in NJ, he said: “There’s an awful lot of players competing for what is now a very healthy market, but I think our propositions both in Tropicana casino and Virgin casino are holding up extremely well.”

Last summer, Fenton told EGR Intel the firm’s focus in the US would remain on casino and expanding its current offering into new states.

Overall, the group, whose UK brands make up 52%, saw a 15% year-on-year rise in gaming revenue to $665.5m.

Gamesys came 17th in the EGR US Power Rankings 2020.