Stars Group bought several sports betting brands (SkyBet, CrownBet) to gain a standing in the bookmaker industry.
PokerStars launched mobile sports betting in New Jersey under the BetStars brand on Thursday night. The BetStars live/in-play betting app is accessible through the Resorts Casino and Pokerstars New Jersey gaming portal.
Matt Priveaux, the SVP for U.S. Strategy and Operations of the Stars Group (parent company of PokerStars), said in a tweet during the Thursday launch, “As one of the largest online gaming companies in the world with millions of customers worldwide, we have successfully launched BetStars in regulated markets across Europe and look forward to expanding and enhancing our New Jersey BetStars offering.”
Stars Group is one of the largest online gambling companies on the Internet. It owns PokerStars, PokerStars Live, PokerStars Casino, Full Tilt Poker, and Sky Betting & Gaming. Through its Sky Betting brand, the Montreal-based Stars Group licenses sites like Sky Bet, Sky Casino, Sky Poker, and Sky Bingo.
The launch is the latest mobile sports betting app introduced into the New Jersey online gaming market. Legal sports betting began in New Jersey on June 12, roughly a month after the US Supreme Court struck down a 46-state federal bookmaker ban as unconstitutional.
888 Sport App Being Tested
Meanwhile, 888 Sport is testing its own Android and IOS sports betting produce for New Jersey bettors. 888 is affiliated with Caesars Entertainment in the United States, as its gaming software handles Caesars websites in New Jersey, Delaware, and Nevada.
Previously, William Hill, FanDuel, and Paddy Power-Betfair launched sports betting products in the New Jersey gaming market. It is the most rapidly expanding sports betting market in the United States since the SCOTUS decision. Since the June launch, New Jersey sports bettors have wagered $152 million on sporting events, but that was before the NFL season began.
$152 Million Wagered in New Jersey
The month-to-month increases have been stark. Gamblers wagered $40.6 million in July, then wagered another $95 million in August 2018. Little of that was wagered on football, because the NFL was playing preseason exhibition games and the NCAA football season did not launch until the final week of August.
With the NFL regular season kicking off last weekend and NCAA college football about to start its conference schedules, the New Jersey sports betting industry should show a large boost in its gaming revenues in September 2018.
None of that will be wagered on Rutgers football, because of a New Jersey gaming law which stipulates sportsbooks cannot offer wagers on New Jersey college football. Neither can it offer wagers on high school football. Both involve heightened concern about match-fixing or point-shaving, since bookies might offer unpaid players enough money to throw games. In an era when even entry-level NFL players would risk millions of dollars to throw a game, the integrity of NFL games are less circumspect.
PokerStars New Jersey
PokerStars New Jersey is the top online poker site in the New Jersey gaming market. The site had to wait over two years after the November 2013 online gaming rollout to launch, but it became the number one Texas Hold’em site in the state after a single month.
PokerStars is the biggest online card room in the world, dominating any gaming market it enters. That is why Morris Bailey’s Resorts Casino signed an early deal with PokerStars, then waited nearly three years to launch its iGaming portal.
In the online casino market, Golden Nugget Casino’s partnership with SugarHouse Casino out of Philadelphia have proven the best. SugarHouse Casino signed licensing deals with IGT, Bally Technologies, WMG Gaming, and Konami to offer their popular video slots. That was a winning combination, as SugarHouse Casino became the top site in the market only 3 months after its launch.
Borgata Online is the no. 2 operator in the online casino and online poker niches, though the brick-and-mortar Borgata is the clear no. 1 casino in Atlantic City. At some points over the past 5 years, the MGM Resorts-owned Borgata has commanded as much as 40% of the brick-and-mortar revenues in Atlantic City.
