2014 WSOP Gives Nevada's Leading Online Poker Room A Boost

Prior to the 2014 World Series Of Poker kicking off at the end of May in Las Vegas, the organization announced a cross-promotional campaign to give its online poker room, WSOP.com, a much needed boost. More than a week into the Series and that campaign has now had a major effect on the site’s traffic, which has risen by roughly 50% from an average of 97 cash-game players to its current level of 140.
On June 2nd WSOP.com even saw its traffic peak at 373 players before settling back to its present level, a feat made even more impressive by the fact world-wide cash-game traffic has dropped by 4.4% over the same period. Furthermore, the previous month the state of Nevada had also suffered its first ever online poker revenue decline, plummeting by 14.5% to $792,000 in April.
Included amongst the measures the WSOP has employed to give maximum exposure to its online product are allowing live tournament competitors to simultaneously play poker online; allowing poker players to make online cash deposits via the casino cage, and running daily WSOP satellites to live events. Needless to say, the Rio is decorated with a plethora of WSOP.com logos, banners and other ads which have also been successful in driving players towards the WSOP.com website.
As Calvinayre reporter Lee Davy summed up ahead of the 2014 WSOP: “They believe there will be more people than ever, and as such have increased the number of cage windows and personnel. They also made a point of stressing the importance of bringing the fun back into the game and talked about the Rio’s new zip line attraction, new chairs, and a whole host of pre-tournament festivities designed to keep the players occupied. The dreadful food options have gotten slightly better with the introduction of a new Hash House A-Go-Go.”
Helping to give WSOP.com a further boost is the sheer volume of people now visiting the tourist resort of Las Vegas, with more than 80,000 players from 100 different countries expected to take part in the 65 bracelet Series.
In spite of the encouraging figures, however, the rise in online traffic is thus far restricted to just the WSOP.com site and hasn’t translated into more players for Nevada’s other internet poker rooms. The state’s second largest site, Ultimate Poker, for instance has maintained an average of 50 cash-game players, while Nevada’s third poker room, Real Gaming, is still showing no customers at all, according to PokerScout.