Best month for New Jersey’s internet gambling lifts casinos

CORRECTS TO PAI GOW POKER- This Jan. 31, 2014 photo shows a game of pai gow poker under way on a computer screen in Atlantic City, N.J. On Wednesday April 12, 2017, New Jersey regulators revealed that internet gambling had its best month ever in March 2017, up more than 40 percent over March 2016 to $21.7 million. (AP Photo/Wayne Parry) CORRECTS TO PAI GOW POKER- This Jan. 31, 2014 photo shows a game of pai gow poker under way on a computer screen in Atlantic City, N.J. On Wednesday April 12, 2017, New Jersey regulators revealed that internet gambling had its best month ever in March 2017, up more than 40 percent over March 2016 to $21.7 million. (AP Photo/Wayne Parry)

By Associated Press April 12, 2017 3 min read

ATLANTIC CITY, N.J. (AP) – There’s no longer much of a debate about it: Internet gambling is helping to save Atlantic City’s casinos.

New Jersey’s online gambling market had its best month ever in March, registering an increase of more than 40 percent from a year ago as it helped Atlantic City’s casinos boost their gambling revenue by more than 9 percent. When the shuttered Trump Taj Mahal is excluded from the calculation, the seven surviving casinos saw an increase of nearly 17 percent last month.

Figures released Wednesday by the state Division of Gaming Enforcement show the casinos won $221.8 million in March. That’s an increase of 9.3 percent compared with March 2016.

The results were helped by an increase of 40.2 percent in online gambling revenue, which increased to $21.7 million in March, compared with $15.5 million a year ago.

Of the seven brick-and-mortar casinos currently operating, only Bally’s posted a decrease, and it was only 2.2 percent.