The state of Delaware, one of the few states that offer legalized online gambling, has experienced a two month decline in revenue for the three locations in the state where regulated online poker is legal. Harrington Raceway, Dover Downs and Delaware Park, saw decreases for May from 21.8% to $39,245 in June of this year.
January saw a record low revenue for the year at $27,695, a respectable number considering last years June low of $25,607. On the positive side, the introduction of Delaware’s first poker platforms produced $30,675, representing an increase of 19.8 percent from June of last year. The increase associate with the Delaware and Nevada liquidity sharing initiative.
Prior to the sharing initiative, participants were limited to the players they could compete against, e.g., Nevada and Delaware residents could only play against residents of their respective states. Those restrictions contributed to both states struggling with regards to online poker revenue, but a gain of 12% in comparison with the first quarter since inception, the player swapping pact is beginning to show positive results.
The results for the individual poker rooms are as follows: Dover Downs, the only online poker room in Delaware to see revenue increase from May 2015 ($6,212) to June 2015 ($6,872), Delaware Park, revenue decreased from $29,267 in May 2015 to $20,169 in June 2015, and Harrington Raceway, saw its online poker numbers drop from $3,765 in May to $3,633 in June.
In addition to Delaware, New Jersey’s online poker revenues decreased by 10.4% from last year, but in general online gambling saw an increase of 22%.
Since Delaware launched its online gambling industry, 11,000 players have registered for gaming options over the internet through the three regulated sites. Not an encouraging number considering in 2014 the state’s estimated population was 935,614.
