New Jersey Online Poker Thriving on Innovation
February 13, 2014
New Jersey has seen an excellent start to its online poker industry, and now more than two months in, analysts are starting to make better long-term predictions on the future of the market, but only time will tell if there will be any decrease in the steady traffic the market has seen over the past month. Now that the initial launch is over, traffic leveled out and remained solid since around the beginning of the year. And the market share has been relatively unwavering, as well. About 41% of the traffic flocks to Party/Borgata, while about 34% heads to WSOP.com, and the All American Poker Network by 888 accommodates the remaining 23% of the market, according to PokerScout data.
At first launch, traffic levels were shockingly high, so there was no real prediction of where the market was going to top out at, but now there’s a better picture of what the market can support.
However, while traffic is secure, there are opportunities for changes in the long-term future. Some aggressive promotion tactics are going into play that may redistribute some of the traffic. As WSOP begins offering satellites and packages to this summer’s WSOP in Las Vegas, more players may be enticed to bet their chips there, while 888 has been offering 80% rackeback since the launch period, but this promo will end at the end of April, and perhaps take a lot of 888’s traffic with it. Furthermore, Ultimate Poker will introduce Two Street Hold ‘em, which is a two-betting-street hand of Texas, and the NO-verlay promotion, which will run through March 9th and refund all buy-ins on tournaments that do not go over their guaranteed prize pool (refunds made in U-Dollars). Essentially, this is quite ingenious because the NO-verlay promotion pretty much guarantees an overlay.
This type of innovative thinking is what is going to drive online poker in New Jersey and globally. The pioneering Rush Poker set forth by Full Tilt, which now there’s an app for, and many online poker brands have added this fast-paced poker game to their repertoire due to the high demand by players. PartyPoker also started thinking outside the box in the New Jersey market, teaming up with the Philadelphia 76ers and the New Jersey Devils sports teams, which seemed to sit well with sports-crazed Jersey poker players.
Poker sites are constantly coming up with new and inventive promotions and ways to play online poker and have been since the days of the digital scavenger hunt that Cake Poker initiated, making a list of poker achievements to check off the list, to PartyPoker’s World Domination in which players have to conquer worldly cities as they played. While innovative promotions don’t always work, once in a while, one comes along that redefines Internet poker, which is essential for the future of the industry.
According to PokerScout, Nevada leveled off after about four weeks, while New Jersey took nine. Furthermore, after Nevada leveled off, the online poker market saw a slow decline of around 20%. Whether or not this will be the case for New Jersey is yet to be known. The operators must now turn their attention towards retaining existing players instead of acquiring new players, where the innovative promotions will come into play.