The New Jersey Division of Gaming Enforcement reported Friday that sportsbooks earned $92.3 million in adjusted gross sports wagering revenue in October with their lowest collective hold dating back to February.

The nearly $1.3 billion handle was fourth-highest in 65 months of legal wagering in the Garden State and represented a 22% year-over-year increase. It was the 13th time New Jersey sportsbooks surpassed $1 billion worth of accepted wagers, leaving it second only to neighboring New York, which has done so 19 times in 22 months of mobile betting.

New Jersey sportsbooks statewide combined to post a hold of 7.1%, the lowest since they fashioned one just shy of 6.5% in February. Revenue, though, was still up 18.4% compared to October 2022 thanks to the substantial bump in handle from the $1.06 billion reported last year.

The state collected $11.8 million in taxes, which resulted in a single-year record of $102.6 million with two months to spare and bettered the mark of $102 million set in 2021. It also left the Garden State less than $53,000 from $400 million in state tax receipts since launch in June 2018.

1 NEW YORK $15.02B
2 NEW JERSEY $9.06B
3 Illinois $6.69B
4 PENN $5.82B
5 Nevada $5.68B
6 Ohio $5.23B
7 Arizona $4.52B
8 Virginia $3.75B
9 Colorado $3.68B
10 MASS $3.65B#gamblingtwitter

— Chris Altruda (@AlTruda73) November 17, 2023

New Jersey sportsbooks have surpassed $800 million in revenue through the first 10 months of the year, up 34.7% versus the comparable period last year. Parlays have played a pivotal role in that surge, which included a six-month stretch in which the hold was 22% or higher each month on handle totaling more than $1.16 billion.

For the second consecutive month, parlay handle set an all-time record — the $340 million in wagers was 10.6% higher than September, but the $64 million in operator winnings was down 6.2%. The 18.8% hold on those wagers was close to 3.4 percentage points lower than September’s 22.2% win rate and 10.4 percentage points off the all-time peak of 29.2% attained in July.

Even with the backslide by the house, the overall parlay win rate for the 2023 calendar year is bumping 21% on more than $2.2 billion wagered, and the $463.8 million in revenue has already exceeded the full-year 2022 total of $450.8 million that was achieved with a 18.5% hold on $2.44 billion handle.

1 NEW JERSEY $42.79B
2 Nevada $35.15B
3 NEW YORK $31.67B
4 Illinois $25.35B
5 PENN $24.72B
6 Colorado ~$13.9B
7 INDIANA $13.82B
8 Arizona ~$12.3B
9 Michigan $11.97B
10 Virginia $11.88B#GamblingTwitter

— Chris Altruda (@AlTruda73) November 17, 2023

When not chasing multi-leg parlay wins, bettors in the Garden State continue to be effective against the house in single-event wagering. The house posted a slender 3.3% hold on a record $517.3 million handle for football, laying claim to more than $16.8 million in revenue.

The opening month of the NBA season contributed to basketball handle more than tripling to $88.3 million, but the public won back all but nearly $1.7 million of those bets to limit operators to a hold under 1.9%. Operators did have a $30 million swing in their favor in the catch-all “other” category — which includes hockey, soccer, golf, tennis, boxing, auto racing, and MMA in New Jersey — going from a $19 million loss to an $11.4 million gain despite a 4.9% hold.

Operators continued to have a successful late-season surge in baseball, though, crafting a 9.2% hold to claim nearly $11.8 million in winnings from $127.9 million worth of wagers. In the three months from August-October, the house had a 10.2% win rate on baseball wagers to keep more than $68 million in revenue from $664.1 million handle.

Year-over-year revenue for that three-month span was up 157.8%, easily outpacing the 46.5% surge in handle as the hold was more than 4.4 percentage points higher.

After putting together its top two months in all-time revenue in August and September with a combined $106.8 million in operator revenue, the mobile skins tethered to Resorts Digital — primarily DraftKings and including Resorts’ in-house app — finally came back to the pack in October. The two mobile options combined for $15.3 million in revenue, barely more than 30% of September’s $49.9 million haul and down nearly 11% from October 2022.

Meanwhile, the three mobile options for New Jersey bettors tethered to the Meadowlands Race Track — FanDuel, PointsBet, and Superbook — reported $57.8 million in winnings for October. That was second all-time to the $59 million-plus claimed in November 2021 and a year-over-year increase of more than 35%.

Hard Rock‘s mobile tethers, which include Unibet and bet365 in addition to its own skin, also saw its October revenue cleaved by more than half compared to September as the trio reported a combined revenue of nearly $2.1 million. BetMGM and the Borgata could not put together back-to-back months of eight-figure revenue totals for the first time, though the $7.2 million in winnings ranked second for the calendar year.

On the retail side, four of the 12 brick-and-mortar sportsbooks posted losses in October, with Ocean Resort taking the biggest hit with bettors coming out nearly $284,000 ahead. After a rough 2022 in which the Borgata’s sportsbook finished more than $3.6 million in the hole, it is ahead close to $3.5 million entering the final two months of 2023 after reporting nearly $625,000 in winnings for October.