PokerStars NJ Q1 Results A Mixed Bag

PokerStars was forced to leave the US market in April 2011, and after five years in the wilderness the brand was eventually granted an online gambling license to operate in New Jersey before officially launching its real-money product on March 28st. Three months down the line, and PokerStars has now released its first full quarter financial figures, and the result has not been quite as spectacular as initially predicted.
On the positive side, PokerStars has since managed to capture a 39.5% share of the state’s online poker market, while WSOP/888poker and Borgata/partypoker have seen their shares reduced to just 30.6% and 29.9% respectively. The overall three monthly figures then translate into $787,070 of revenues for PokerStars, while WSOP/888poker was not far behind on $602,103, and the Borgata/partypoker pairing a little further back on $589,002.
In addition, New Jersey’s online poker market has experienced an impressive level of growth since PokerStars’ entry, with revenues higher by 30% in both April and June, although that figure dropped to just 7.3% growth in June versus the same month in 2015. Nevertheless, much of the growth has been achieved without any great level of marketing expenditure by PokerStars, or sponsorship deals with major league sports teams.
On the flip side, last month’s results also show that New Jersey’s initial honeymoon period with PokerStars has since ended, and worryingly for the site it is currently showing just 110 cash game players over a 7-day period, compared to 130 players for WSOP/888. Analysts will now eagerly be anticipating next month’s online poker revenue results to gauge further the direction in which PokerStars is now moving in New Jersey.
In the meantime, PokerStars has also recently experienced somewhat of a contraction in its global business, too, with the brand’s cash game traffic sinking to a nine-year low of around 11,500 players. As a result, PokerStars’ global cash game traffic is now just half of what it was six years ago.