View From The Sky
Online poker traffic worldwide dropped a further 2% this week, seeing 9 out of the top 10 online poker sites lose ground with only one increasing their numbers.
Full Tilt moved up from seventh place to their usual spot lately in fifth, with Pokerstars.it and Bodog moving back to their usual spots of sixth and seventh. All of the other top 10 sites kept their past positions.
Overall, the online poker market is down 13% from where it was a year ago.
Instead of seeing poker traffic numbers pick up after the conclusion of the World Cup, the numbers dipped even further this week, especially last Saturday, which saw Poker Stars have its worst day since Christmas Eve 2008. Other sites suffered as well, including New Jersey market leader Party Borgata, who suffered their worst day ever on Saturday. So whatever was going on Saturday, it was pretty widespread.
In spite of the poor day, the New Jersey market had a decent week overall, although the same can’t be said about the Nevada market, which continued to struggle in the wake of the WSOP ending.
Lottery Sit and Go Format Catching On
Winimax’s Expresso sit and go format, which they rolled out a year ago, is really starting to catch on lately, and as is often the case with new poker formats, other sites are copying it.
First site to introduce Lottery SnG format to dot-com market was iPoker Network with the launch of Twister Poker in January 2014.
Full Tilt Poker calls theirs Jackpot Sit and Go’s, and it is becoming popular enough there to impact their cash game traffic pretty significantly, and the 8% that their cash traffic has fallen off over the last month is in large part attributed to this.
However, traffic is traffic, although the plan is to get more of it overall and not just shift cash game players toward it, but what happens a lot is that existing players end up making up the bulk of the folks trying these things out. That’s to be expected though.
"From the random prize pool draw at start of play to the fast-paced structure and format, Jackpot Sit & Go Tournaments have been designed to provide players, even if they only have a few minutes to play, a truly exciting way to compete for big prizes." says Sarne Lightman, Full Tilt Poker’s Director of Marketing.
PokerStars has rolled this out at their Spanish site, although they have yet to introduce it to their main site. So far 4 of the top 10 online poker sites offer a variation of this, with more expected to add it soon.
Sunday Major Tournament Traffic Rising For U.S. Facing Rooms
The big time Sunday tournament traffic is really moving ahead for the offshore poker rooms that serve the U.S. market. This is particularly evident in this week’s numbers.
Both the Equity Poker Network and Bovada saw their numbers up 20% this Sunday. The Winning Poker Network is up almost 6%, to go along with their recent announcement of their million dollar tournament scheduled for this fall.
Overall, things are looking up for these poker rooms, at least when it comes to the popularity of their big tournaments, and these big tournaments can certainly drive the traffic, so this all may bode well for the long term health of this market.
U.K Licensing May Have Big Impact On Worldwide Poker Market
The new U.K. licensing scheme may end up having a lot bigger effect on the world of online poker than many first thought. Part of the price of obtaining a license to operate in the U.K. is to be subject to the U.K. government telling you which other countries you can and can’t serve.
While this all hasn’t been spelled out all that clearly yet, it does seem that the government will be exercising at least some control here, which may see some of the bigger poker rooms no longer do business in certain other countries.
There are a number of conditions that are already being placed upon licensees, and in particular placing the burden upon the poker rooms to show “legal justification” in cases where a significant amount of their revenue, generally over 3%, comes from a so called grey market.
We will have to see how this all plays out but we may be seeing more poker sites exit more countries as a result.
Amaya Gaming Adds Casino Games To Full Tilt
Full Tilt has been rolling out casino games in select markets since the beginning of the year and have now added slots games from their parent company Amaya Gaming, to go along with the deals they already have in place for roulette and blackjack.
Full Tilt has also changed its domain name to fulltilt.com, removing the reference to poker in it as it prepares to offer a more broad based online gambling platform.
With almost all poker rooms offering both casino games and sports betting to go along with poker, it was probably just a matter of time before Poker Stars and Full Tilt joined the party, but this process will no doubt be accelerated now that they are under new ownership.
Amaya Gaming has already expressed its intention to get into the sports betting market with these two former Rational sites.
