Online casinos have thrived throughout the pandemic and they continue to do well as we (hopefully) move through the end of it. That’s where we’ll start off this week’s recap of the news.
Online Casinos In New Jersey Set Record In Monthly Revenue
While COVID-19 has been rough on land-based casinos, it has been friendly to online gambling. According to online operators in the state, online casinos brought in $118.7 million in gross revenue during the month of July, which continues strong numbers that they’ve experienced since the beginning of the pandemic. What’s surprising is that this is now the new record for monthly revenue for online casinos – even with land-based open. The previous record was set back in March with $113.7 million. July was a massive increase compared to June, when gamblers only lost $87.5 million.
A good chunk of the New Jersey poker community has stopped playing live poker in exchange for these online cardrooms. The majority of poker rooms in the state have either closed back down are shuttered their operations entirely at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, which is why a lot of the community chose to switch.
This has made their online revenue numbers look incredibly good. The Borgata brought in the most revenue in the state with $63.85 million with Hard Rock Atlantic City being a sizeable second with $47.7 million.
South Dakota Casino Robber Sentenced To 12 Years In Prison
A 27-year-old repeat casino robber has recently been prosecuted in South Dakota. Shannon Larive was hit with a 12-year sentence and will have five additional years of supervised release after that. He has also been sentenced to pay a $200 fine on top of all that from the federal court.
Larive was sentenced after he was convicted on multiple robberies between March 16th and March 21st. He has allegedly robbed not one, not two, but three different casinos in Rapid City while attempting one more afterwards. In all of those robberies, he brought a firearm with him and flashed it to the employees before demanding money.
The police searched his car after he was arrested and found piles of .22 caliber rounds of ammunition there. They also picked out a .22 caliber pistol as well after he threw it out of the vehicle while being chased by the authorities.
WynnBet Adding Wynn Rewards To Sports Betting Platform
We could finally be getting a customer loyalty rewards program from WynnBET, an operator of an online casino and sports betting platform. Wynn Rewards has been working on integrating this new system to their website in order to allow players to pick up points while they play both the desktop and mobile version of their platform.
The players who redeem points can choose to use them for their online play or simply cash them in for hotel room stays and meals. These perks should be live to residents in Virginia, New Jersey, Tennessee, Colorado and Indiana by the end of the month as well. Michigan is listed also but isn’t expected to be integrated until the fall.
WynnBET was a little slower than their competitors when it came to getting themselves into the sports betting and iGaming world. This is why the loyalty program is set up to get them back on the right track, to win customers and then also retain them. The company hopes to use this new program to leverage some additional growth. Caesars Entertainment just recently integrated a rewards program of their own, so the battle to retain customers has just begun.