WSOP Nevada Now Tops US Regulated Online Poker Market
June 12, 2014 6:19 pmSince the end of May, WSOP.com in Nevada has seen its online poker traffic skyrocket by an incredible 50%, with cash game numbers currently showing an average of 150 players over a seven-day period. As a result of a cross-promotional campaign linking its product to the World Series Of Poker live tournament series, WSOP (Nevada) has now risen to become the USA’s top ranked regulated poker site, ahead of previous leader Party Borgata in New Jersey.
While WSOP.com is enjoying its busiest period to date, with traffic expected to remain high until at least mid-July, its nearest rival in Nevada, Ultimate Poker, has largely been unaffected by the thousands of poker fans drawn to the Rio All Suite Hotel and Casino. Consequently, the site is still showing roughly 55 cash game players at any one time, the same number as before the WSOP kicked off on May 27th.
New Jersey, on the other hand, seems headed in the opposite direction with the state’s most popular poker room PartyPoker NJ seeing a 40% fall off in its traffic since March. Furthermore, the whole NJ market has shrunk from 617 cash game players at the end of January to just 307 players last week. Commenting on the disappointing results, Robert DellaFave from onlinepokerreport, explained:
“Nevada, despite a population only 32.6% of the size of New Jersey’s, is currently boasting 64.2% of the cash-game traffic. I expect this ratio to become even more disproportionate as June wears on..Factor in New Jersey’s small population, higher attrition rates, and technological challenges, and I wouldn’t be surprised if 250 became the new standard during off-peak seasons.”
WSOP.com Nevada’s impressive performance comes at a time when global online poker traffic has plummeted by 9% compared to the same time last year, and 3% compared to the previous week. Even the world’s biggest poker room is not immune to the downturn and last week PokerStars had 1,000 less cash game players, enough to crash any other poker room on the planet. PokerStars is now showing 19,000 players over a seven-day period, giving it nine times as many ring game players as 888poker in second place.