Super Bowl Effect On Poker
The Super Bowl surprisingly only had a minor effect on New Jersey online poker rooms, with traffic only dropping off by 10% during the game, and given that the game only takes up a very small portion of the week, this had virtually no effect on the market.
In Nevada, the Super Bowl had little effect as well, although the Nevada market did suffer a drop this week as far as the results for the entire week are concerned, but this was due to other factors.
Outside the U.S., poker rooms weren’t even that affected during the game itself, with only a 5% drop in traffic on average. This pales in comparison to the drop we saw during World Cup matches, which was not only much larger but much more frequent given all of the matches played during the tournament.
California Indian Tribes Still Divided On Online Poker
In spite of how long the discussion has been going on concerning the passing of an online poker bill in California, it does not seem like there is much progress being made at all, especially when it comes to getting the state’s Indian tribes to agree on a proposal.
While a lot of tribes have not expressed much interest in this matter, and given the relativity disappointing results that we continue to see in New Jersey, Nevada, and Delaware, all falling well short of initial expectations, there are still several tribes that still maintain an interest in online poker, a total of seven right now, although they simply haven’t been able to come to an agreement on key issues.
There are now not two different camps but three, and the main sticking points have to do with whether or not racetracks should be licensed to offer internet gambling, and of course the bad actor debate that calls into question whether Poker Stars should be allowed in the California market.
PokerStars’ new ownership has caused them to be seen as more friendly in New Jersey, but this still remains as big of a controversy as ever in California.
The racetrack issue seems to be an even bigger one though, with the tribes and overall, and it seems like we don’t just need the Indians to get together on this, they probably not only need to do this but get together with the racetrack lobby, and given that some Indian tribes strongly oppose this, this really could take quite a bit longer.
