Delaware Has Massive Jump in Online Gambling Revenue

It’s the end of the year, which means people are finishing up reports, setting up out-of-office messages, and heading home for a few weeks. Before they go, they usually publish business or industry information, which usually reveals how they expect that business or industry to perform in the following year. In Delaware’s case, there’s good news.

Delaware isn’t a large state by any means. The entire state has a population of less that a million people, which puts it firmly in the bottom five states in terms of population in the entire country. It’s the second smallest state in the nation, only beaten by Rhode Island. Given all that information, it should come as no surprise that Delaware doesn’t bring in millions each month from online gambling. What it did do, however, is massively improve from last year.

In November 2013, Delaware had just recently legalized online gambling. People were just getting used to the idea, and it hadn’t really taken off yet. That month, they generated $111,387. For a state of that size, and considering it had just launched, that’s a pretty good number.

In October of 2014, the numbers were slightly better. The numbers from Delaware Park, Dover Downs, and Harrington Raceway totaled $130,268. The following month, November 2014, the totals jumped to $184,898, a massive increase of 42%. Individual games were up across the board.

So, what caused the jump?

It could’ve been a number of things. For starters, we’re coming into the winter months. During this time, especially in Delaware, people don’t want to leave their homes (and with temperatures staying below 50 degrees for the better half of the month, nobody can blame them). To get their gambling fix, they didn’t need to do anything besides turn on their computer.

Another possibility is that the sites ran a great no deposit promotion during this month. Land-based casinos can’t match the deals that online sites run, and knowing that more people would likely stay home, there’s little doubt that sites took advantage of that fact.

There’s no way to say for sure what caused the increase, but one thing is worth noting. In November 2014, there were only 308 new accounts created, which is the lowest total for any month. This suggests that those that already play online games are happy and will continue to do so.

Delaware’s going to coast into 2015 on these high numbers. The only thing that they need to do at this point is focus on getting new players. The players that they do have are enjoying themselves and playing more, but Delaware will do even better once new players sign up.