Nevada Poker Sites Bring In $8.52m After Almost One Year

The Nevada Gaming Control Board has released its first tranche of online poker statistics since launching its first site back in April, 2013, and the results have been anything but spectacular.
The Silver State has generated $8.52 million in revenues over the past 10 months, and in February collected $824,000 from its three poker sites, representing around 9% of Nevada’s total combined gambling results for the whole of last month. Worryingly, even with online poker thrown into the mix, Nevada’s gambling industry pulled in just $926 million last month, down a massive 14% compared to the $1.073 billion it collected in February 2013.
Although the state has not released the individual revenues of its three online poker sites, it is possible to make an estimate based on their traffic as reported by PokerScout. Consequently, in February Nevada’s poker sites had on average 160 players at any one time with WSOP.com claiming around 55% of the market, and Ultimate Poker around 45%, while Real Gaming only launched late last month and so has reported only minimal traffic thus far.
The latest traffic report also indicates WSOP recorded on average around 95 cash game players over a seven-day period, down 25% from the previous month, while Ultimate Poker Nevada had around 65 players, 10% lower than in January. Overall, the market seems to have shrunk as when Ultimate Poker was the only online poker room  in the state between May and September 2013, the site regularly had on average 180 to 220 cash game players at any one time.
Compared to the other regulated states of New Jersey and Delaware, however, Nevada has fared fairly well for its size. In fact, with 65 players per million, Nevada’s percentage of players per population is squarely in line with other global online poker markets which have on average between 55-67 players per million.
As far as revenues are concerned, Nevada’s tally of $824,000 in February was significantly higher than the $73,971 generated by Delaware, but less than a tenth that of New Jersey’s, which collected $10.3 million during the over the same period.
On the bright side, the coming months may see a spike in Nevada’s online poker figures as thousands of people from around the world head to Las Vegas to compete at this years WSOP taking place between May and July.