Atlantic City's August: Floors Down 5.5%, Sports Down 25%, Only iGaming Grew

New Jersey's total gaming revenue fell 4.1% to $615.7m as eight of nine casino floors lost ground and a late football calendar cut sports betting revenue to $61.4m. Online casino rose 4.4% to $259.3m but came off July's record, and for a second month the floor out-earned the internet. The summer as a whole was the resort's best in ten years.

• Total gaming revenue for New Jersey's casinos, racetracks and their partners was $615.7m in August, down 4.1% from $642.2m a year earlier, the Division of Gaming Enforcement said on 16 September; year to date it is $4.81bn, up 5.4%, with $674.2m paid in gross revenue taxes
• Casino win at the nine Atlantic City properties was $294.9m, down 5.5% from $311.9m; eight floors declined, Ocean Resort by 13%, and only MGM's Borgata grew, by 6.4%
• Internet gaming win was $259.3m, up 4.4% on August 2025 but 6.4% below July's record $276.9m, ending three straight months above $270m; year to date it is $2.13bn, up 13.2%, with $57.7m of tax in the month
• Sports wagering gross revenue fell 25.0% to $61.4m, which the DGE attributed to "a later start to the fall sports calendar for certain sports compared to August 2025, including college football, as well as a lower overall win percentage"; year to date it is $671.4m, down 5.3%
• FanDuel led online casino with $56.7m (down 0.7%), then DraftKings $43.5m (down 7.5%), BetMGM $35.1m (up 7.8%), Borgata $20.6m, Caesars Palace $19.3m (up 6.8%) and Hard Rock Bet $15.2m (up 13.3%); Fanatics grew fastest of the larger brands, up 30.7% to $13.1m, PlayNJ's brand breakdown shows
• Summer in-person win of $856m was the best in a decade, Casino Control Commission chairman James Plousis said, while warning that last year online win "eclipsed in-person casino win in every month of the shoulder season"

A Down Month at the End of an Up Summer

August is normally Atlantic City's strongest month, and in 2026 it was strong without being a record. Brick-and-mortar win of $294.9m was, on Stockton University's Brian Tyrrell's reading, an improvement on nine of the last ten Augusts and short only of last year's all-time high. July had been the best July since 2012, and the three summer months together produced $856m of in-person win, the most in ten years. The month-on-month story is therefore a comparison against a peak, and the operators will say so.

The property detail is less comfortable. Eight of nine floors were down, with Ocean Resort off 13%, and only Borgata, the market leader, grew. Tyrrell listed the calendar effects: Labor Day fell on 7 September rather than 1 September, pulling the holiday weekend out of the month, and August 2026 had one fewer Friday than August 2025 with the same number of Saturdays. Those are real, and they do not explain a 13% fall at one property.

Online Slows, Sports Stalls, and a Warning About Autumn

Internet gaming win of $259.3m was the only line to grow year on year, and it grew by less than it has all year: 4.4% against a year-to-date rate of 13.2%. It was also, for a second consecutive month, below the casino floor. Tyrrell called it the lowest online return since February. The brand table shows the two leaders flat to down, FanDuel by 0.7% and DraftKings by 7.5%, and the growth coming from BetMGM, Caesars, Hard Rock and Fanatics, whose $13.1m is more than double its August 2025 figure. Peer-to-peer games, mostly poker, fell 3.2% to $2.6m.

Sports betting revenue of $61.4m, down a quarter, is the number the DGE felt the need to explain. College football's later start and a low win percentage account for most of it, but Tyrrell added a sentence the industry will read twice: "Atlantic City-based sportsbooks may be showing some impact from predictions markets trading in sports contracts." New Jersey is a state where Kalshi holds an injunction against enforcement, and where a sports contract has been available to residents at 18 throughout the 2025 season.

Plousis's warning is the one that matters for the next six months. In every month of last year's shoulder season, October to March, online win exceeded the floors, and the operators face what he called "record-high costs and expenses" going into it.

The Floor Beat the Internet Twice, and That Is the Exception

Two summer months in which the casino floor out-earned online gaming look like a reversal of the trend that has defined New Jersey since 2020. They are a seasonal artefact: August is the floor's best month and a soft one for online, and the year-to-date figures, floor up 1.8% and internet up 13.2%, are the trend. By November the internet will be ahead again, and online win, already $120m ahead of the floor for the year to date, is on course to finish the year above it.

The Prediction Market Line Comes From the State's Own Analyst

Tyrrell's remark is hedged, and the calendar explains most of the sports decline on its own. But the academic who reads the DGE's numbers for the state has now named prediction markets as a possible cause of a sportsbook revenue fall, and it is New Jersey, which licensed the books and is litigating against the exchanges. The state's own case in court is that the exchanges take licensed handle. Its own August numbers are the first place anyone has looked for evidence.

Fanatics Is Doing in New Jersey What It Is Doing in New York

Up 30.7% in online casino, more than double year to date, and in New York a 1.1% hold on the NFL opener: Fanatics is buying share in the two largest north-eastern markets at the same time, and the DGE's tax line shows who pays for it. A brand that grows revenue by a third in a month where the market grew 4% is taking customers from the leaders, and the leaders' flat numbers are where those customers came from.

Atlantic City's best summer in ten years ended with every floor but one in decline. The next six months will show whether it was the weather or the trend.