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Online gambling is most popular in Toms River, Jersey City and Cherry Hill, but casinos aren't sure why.

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Luck be a lady in Toms River.

Gamblers there, in Jersey City and Cherry Hill spend more time on Caesars Entertainment’s online gaming sites than anyone else since they went live in late November, according to Seth Palansky, the company’s spokesman.

Overall, Caesars’ customers spent an average of 43 minutes and 18 seconds gambling online, but Palansky said he doesn’t know why the websites have been more successful in certain parts of New Jersey and less so in others.

No special attention was paid to Toms River or Jersey City, he said. Cherry Hill, he reasoned, is close enough to Atlantic City to create a little extra interest among residents there.

“We do want to be careful, because it’s early, to not overanalyze the data,” he said. “It tells us after 100 days that there are areas where we should focus on marketing and that some of it has already been effective.”

As the state nears the four-month anniversary of legalized online gambling, casinos and analysts have been considering how the companies can grow their audience.

But therein lies a marketing conundrum: It’s hard to replicate a strategy that works if it’s not clear why it worked in the first place. Advertising for online gambling has been statewide and not by town.

Sue Schneider, a consultant and former chairwoman of the Interactive Gaming Council, suggested that online gaming took hold in places with high numbers of the elderly or disabled, for whom traveling to Atlantic City presents some logistical challenges.

But if the online players are totally new to gambling, she said, that could be great news for casinos.

“Those new customers they get online might be in a younger demographic that doesn’t want to go into the casino and play slot machines,” Schneider said.

“That’s the value in a land-based casino that goes online,” she said. “It could eventually bring new people into the casino itself.”

Steady pace

As of last month, the New Jersey Division of Gaming Enforcement, the state’s gambling regulator, said almost a quarter of a million people had created accounts on licensed gaming websites.

People have signed up at a steady pace since things kicked off on Nov. 27. Early on, the DGE put out weekly numbers, said spokesman Kerry Langan, but now the division puts out a total in its monthly revenue reports.

Through the end of December, 126,000 accounts were created, according to the gaming division. Then in the first two months of 2014 the number of user accounts nearly doubled.

In its February report on casino revenue, DGE said internet gaming winnings had risen 20 percent, to $368,110. Accounts grew at a faster clip that month, surging 25 percent, from 197,782 in January to 248,241.

Players gambling on Caesars Entertainment websites — Harrahs Casino, World Series of Poker and Caesars Casino — account for one in four of the accounts that have been created.

It’s not that Caesars is the only company keeping an eye on its numbers, but it was the only one currently willing to share details.

Neither Golden Nugget nor Tropicana responded to requests from The Star-Ledger to discuss where their web traffic has been coming from in New Jersey.

Joe Lupo, senior vice president of operations at Borgata Hotel Casino & Spa, said getting into the specifics on user demographics would amount to airing proprietary information.

“We are happy to be seeing play in northern Jersey and in the middle of the state,” he said. “However, those are the more heavily populated areas, so one would have assumed that would be the case.”

Time and money

In reviewing the Top 10 lists Caesars generated with its web traffic data, Palansky pointed out that spending more time online doesn’t seem to increase a person’s winnings.

Belford in Monmouth County, Ventnor in Atlantic County and Delanco in Burlington County — none of which appear high in the rankings for time spent on Caesar’s websites — are home to the winningest online gamblers who frequent Caesars’ websites.

Bob Lacorte, whose hometown of Somerset didn’t make it onto any of Caesar’s Top 10 lists, said he plays several of Caesar Entertainment’s free casino games on Facebook and makes the two-hour trek down to Atlantic City about once a month with a friend.

He considers himself a very good video poker player. Lacorte prefers it because he’s confident his odds of winning are the same as if he were sitting at a table with a dealer shuffling cards.

“How it works is, for one second that hand is shuffled in the computer almost 2 million times, but as soon as you hit the play button, that deck is sealed and can’t be changed,” Lacorte said. “It’s supposed to be dealt out as natural as if you were playing a real poker game at home.”

He does have lingering concerns about the odds being just as fair if he plays from his computer at home, but they’re slowly losing out to his curiosity.

“In the next month, will I do it? Most likely I will,” he said. “Just to see if it would be the same online as if I were sitting in front of a machine in the casino.”

Another hang-up Lacorte has run into while considering online gambling is the lack of incentives. For someone who visits casinos monthly, he’s used to a constant stream of vouchers for complimentary rooms or meals to lure him back to Atlantic City.

Palansky said Caesars has intentionally been slow to market its online gaming offerings to its existing casino patrons.

“We have a database of land-based customers that we’re marketing to, but we didn’t do too much early with those customers for the online gaming because the product was new and in this trial phase,” he said. “Those customers have a high level of expectations from us and they frequent our casinos, so they haven’t been targeted too much.”

Slight differences

It’s also unlikely those brick-and-mortar customers would experience the same kind of liquidity, or crowds, online that players look for when they’re in the casino, said Schneider, the consultant.

She said the landscape will certainly look different for any New Jersey residents who played online poker several years ago.

“That’s sort of the problem with how things are panning out in the U.S. with online gaming being legalized one state at a time. I’m at a conference in Nevada and we just had the governor speak,” she said. “Nevada is a very small population state, but they just did a deal with Delaware — also small, but also allows online gaming — so that there’s more liquidity and it’s more appealing for the players. You don’t want to log on and see only two other people playing.”

Considering the rate at which people have created accounts and the scant information being released from casinos, Schneider said New Jersey’s online gaming industry is doing about as well as can be expected.

“For now, the casinos, they’re still in maiden voyage mode,” she said. “It’ll continue to grow, but I don’t know that anyone can put hard numbers on how large it’ll get.”

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