NJ Casino News: Weekly Roundup

Get the latest casino news and updates in New Jersey for this week (November 27, 2021 – December 3, 2021).

Borgata Online Player Wins $3.5 Million Jackpot

A New Jersey player at the Borgata online casino won a record-breaking $3.5 million after hitting the jackpot on the exclusive MGM Grand Millions slot. This surpasses the previous national record of another BetMGM prize in 2020, which awarded $3.2 million:

Available only to players accessing its exclusive, in-house slot games, BetMGM touts the biggest progressive jackpot network in the U.S.

BetMGM’s online casino portfolio, which operates under the Borgata AC license, includes the BetMGM, Borgata and Party online casino brands. The company is currently the top online casino operator in New Jersey, with a reported 30% GGR market share in October. The news coincides with NJ online casino revenue hitting a new all-time monthly high of $127 million.

Facade Updates to Bally’s Make Executives Hopeful

In recent years, people who saw the outside of Bally’s Atlantic City casino saw mismatched glass on its facade, blue windows dotted amongst the otherwise rose-colored glass. Now, all of those unsightly panels have been replaced, and executives are hoping that this will mark a turnaround for the casino, which had once thrived but recently had been ranking last among the nine Atlantic City casinos:

“We will be the most aggressive marketing company in Atlantic City, and we will prove that,” Juliano said. “We also realize that the quality of your facility has to match up with that aggressive marketing.”

Work is already under way on new hotel rooms, a new lobby and bar, and a new high-limits room will open early next month. The casino has opened five new restaurants, a FanDuel sports book, reconfigured the casino floor and brought in new slot machines.

Aside from the physical improvements, the purchase gives Bally’s access to New Jersey’s thriving internet gambling market and its nation-leading sports betting market.

Atlantic City Among Hardest-Hit NJ Cities from COVID-19

The New Jersey Hospital Association looked to measure the impact of social and environmental factors on health by ZIP code. Their findings shows that cities like Trenton, Newark, and Atlantic City both ranked the worst socioeconomically and also had the highest per capita rates of coronavirus cases:

“If you overlay a map of the most vulnerable ZIP codes identified by this data, they are very much aligned with the areas that suffered the highest toll of illness during COVID,” said NJHA President and CEO Cathy Bennett in a statement. “This data reinforces a critical lesson: When it comes to population health, the health of the entire state is inextricably linked to the health of our most vulnerable.”

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Experiencing just one of the factors it measured — such as high unemployment or low high school graduation rate — can be detrimental to a community’s overall wellbeing, the report said. ZIP codes that have multiple indicators are more likely to suffer “lasting and profound health vulnerability for entire communities,” the authors said.

Common traits among the most vulnerable ZIP codes included being insured by Medicaid or having no insurance, lacking a high school diploma, being unemployed, struggling to obtain food or accessing healthy options, and a life expectancy that is nearly four years shorter than the statewide average, according to the analysis by NJHA’s research hub, the Center for Health Analytics, Research & Transformation (CHART).