WPN Looking For Bigger Slice Of Unregulated US iPoker Market
September 9, 2015 2:03 pmSince PokerStars and Full Tilt were expelled from the US market in 2011, players outside the country’s three regulated iPoker states of Nevada, New Jersey, and Delaware have been forced to turn to unregulated, offshore operators for their online poker action. As PokerStars and Full Tilt’s previous American customers found out, however, playing on unlicensed sites is not without risks, and US players should therefore not keep any money on such sites that they are not prepared to lose in an instant.
That said, the USA’s unregulated iPoker market continues to thrive, and is currently dominated by a handful of operators, of which Bovada is the clear leader with an average of 1,700 cash games over a 7-day period, also making it the world’s 3rd biggest poker site. Some distance behind is the Winning Poker Network (WPN) with 525 cash players, followed by Merge (220), Chico (210), and Equity (140).
However, WPN has seen major improvements in its traffic numbers recently, thanks in no small part to the 60-events Freebuy Super Series II which concluded recently, in which all players could enter at no cost, and pay a fee only if they chose to re-buy or add-on during a tournament. By the end of the series, these extras totaled $80,000, meaning WPN had to fork out the remaining $70,000 in prize money. That, however, was a fair result for WPN, whose main goal was to draw new depositing players to the site.
In addition, the Winning Poker Network, which hosts Americas Cardroom, Black Chip Poker, True Poker, and YaPoker, pulled off a major marketing coup, recently, after it signed 2015 WSOP November Niner Joshua Beckley to play five ‘Million Dollar Sunday’ events on Americas Cardroom throughout September and October. The 24-year-old poker pro will also live stream his sessions via Twitch, which is sure to attract a good number of viewers. WPN is currently ranked 16th on PokerScout’s ‘Online Poker Traffic Report’, but as WPN CEO Phil Nagy optimistically declared recently, “you’re going to see we’ll be top five in the world for online poker.”