BetMGM, the top online casino in New Jersey, has just begun its testing period in neighboring Pennsylvania.
- It is the thirteenth online casino in Pennsylvania, which is quickly catching up with New Jersey in terms of number of active brands. A market known for delays. Pennsylvania’s iGaming market officially went live last July. It was far from a synchronized launch, however, with only three casinos able to start taking bets in the first week.
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The new online casino has only a few games to start with and limited hours of operation. As is standard in the Keystone State, this soft launch testing period will last for three days.
Winning Casino Marketing Strategy: Database Marketing. Like any other businesses, casinos compete for the disposable dollars of adults, specifically disposable dollars that adult may choose to use for entertainment. Casino marketers are asking for a not-so-insignificant part of that entertainment budget.
A full launch will follow on Friday, December 4. This full launch will include an official announcement, round-the-clock operation and quite likely some additional games.
BetMGM Casino is operated by Roar Digital, a joint venture between GVC Holdings (soon changing its name to Entain) and MGM Resorts International. Representatives of these companies have so far remained quiet about the news, deferring comment until the site leaves the testing phase.
It is the thirteenth online casino in Pennsylvania, which is quickly catching up with New Jersey in terms of number of active brands.
A market known for delays
Pennsylvania’s iGaming market officially went live last July. It was far from a synchronized launch, however, with only three casinos able to start taking bets in the first week. The next competitors – Unibet and PokerStars/Fox Bet – arrived in November. Since then, new sites have been trickling in on a slow but steady basis.
That gradual rollout, combined with organic growth and US casinos closing in March, has led to rapid and sustained growth. In October, PA online casinos managed to exceed $2.1 billion bets received, almost equally split between table games and slots.
For an operator of its stature, BetMGM’s launch comes extremely late, more than 16 months after the market opened. In large part, this has to do with its initial decision to partner with New Jersey’s Borgata casino — owned by MGM Resorts — rather than a local property. Borgata, along with Golden Nugget, has obtained what the Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board (PGCB) calls a “qualified gaming entity (QGE)” certificate. These were made available to out-of-state casinos due to the decision by some eligible in-state operators not to purchase a license.
BetMGM recently reversed that decision, though it’s unclear why. Instead of launching on the Borgata’s certificate, it has partnered with Hollywood Casino, owned by Penn National.
Casino only to start, poker probably coming soon
It’s typically the case that operators launch their online casinos and sportsbooks simultaneously, as a single, integrated app. This is the case with BetMGM in New Jersey. In Pennsylvania, however, BetMGM is a stand-alone casino app for the time being, and there’s no guarantee that will change.
One disadvantage faced by QGEs is that they cannot offer sports betting in PA. However, launching on Hollywood’s certificate doesn’t seem to help on this front. Certificate holders can launch up to three iGaming skins apiece. However, only one online sportsbook is allowed per casino, and Hollywood just launched its own in September.
BetMGM can also offer poker, whether on Borgata’s certificate or Penn’s. It hasn’t yet done so, but does have a BetMGM Poker skin operating on the Partypoker NJ network, which is itself owned by GVC. Assuming BetMGM does eventually launch online poker in PA, the arrangement will be similar, and BetMGM is presumably waiting for Partypoker to launch its own site first.
Big things ahead for BetMGM
BetMGM is, by some estimates, the highest-earning individual online casino site in New Jersey. It is, at least, the most important skin on Borgata’s license, which is the second largest in the state in terms of revenue after Golden Nugget’s.
However, until very recently, BetMGM hadn’t ventured out of that one state. In September, it went live as the second online casino in West Virginia after DraftKings. That’s a small market, and revenue numbers published by the WV lottery show BetMGM trailing DraftKings.
Much bigger things are ahead, both in Pennsylvania and in Michigan. Each is bigger in terms of population than New Jersey, and also less densely packed with competitors. In Michigan, in particular, BetMGM is expected to be among the first casinos to launch in MI, and should be able to grab a large share of the market as a result. This could happen within the next two to three weeks, or in January at the latest.
How To Market A Online Casino Real Money
Thinking of starting an online casino affiliate business? Well, just create a website, post some content, get some backlinks, put up some banners and direct traffic to online casinos; thereafter it’d be just about sitting back and watching the money roll in, right?! Not exactly!
Although many people manage to make a living from affiliate marketing, 95% of them fail to make any profit initially and give up soon after starting.
One of the many reasons why these people fail is because they don’t work with reliable casino establishments. For instance, All Slots casino games are promoted by a great multitude of casino affiliate marketers, who profit heavily by sending quality leads to the portal.
Furthermore, anyone serious about succeeding at Casino affiliate marketing should also get acquainted with some more important facts related to the business.
Starting with the right partner
Majority of the Casino affiliate networks create programs in such a way that it’s a win-win situation for everyone. However, there might be certain entities who take undue advantage of newbies. Please be aware:
- You must get a written contract clearly stating how and when will the payments come
- You’d need to invest a certain amount of money and plenty of time to succeed in this field
- You’d normally never be charged anything for joining a casino affiliate network
- It’s not necessary to have a website in order to promote a casino website
Locating trustworthy partners
Casino affiliate marketing is mostly done based on trust, however, as in any other industry, you can’t expect everyone to operate in a trustworthy way. There would always be some rogue casino establishments that would find different ways of holding back affiliate commissions, sometimes going to the extent of shutting down their operations! That’s why it’s very important to work only with reliable online casinos like ‘All Slots’ and the similar kinds.
Commissions and payments
The commissions offered by casinos may vary from 25% to 30% of the players’ bet amounts. However, affiliates who send high-volume traffic and generate plenty of revenue for their associate casino establishments are known to make anywhere around 50% to 60%. Furthermore, you might even be offered a percentage in case your players continue playing at the casino over the long term. The majority of casino partners aggregate the commissions and then make direct deposits or send out checks during the middle part of the month (for previous month’s commissions)
How to promote
Even though you don’t necessarily have to have a website to sign up as an affiliate, you should preferably invest into one if you are serious about casino affiliate business. Don’t worry if you’re not very tech-savvy as you can easily hire inexpensive freelancers to do the most of the work for you. After your website is ready, you must invest some money in good-quality content and do a certain amount of search engine optimization too.
Setting up social media accounts for your business on websites like LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter etc. is also critical.
How To Market An Online Casino
There are a number of different ways you can market your casino affiliate website – through YouTube videos, mobile marketing campaigns, email campaigns, social media marketing and more.