New Jersey Online Poker Market ContractsRevenue Falls 8.5 Percent Last Month, State Says |
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The winning streak is over.
Online poker revenue in New Jersey was $2.25 million in March, down 8.5 percent compared to the $2.46 million raked a year prior, according to figures released Wednesday by state gaming regulators.
And that’s even with a full month of PokerStars.
It was the first year-over-year decline for online poker since February 2016, when revenue of under $2 million was 2.5 percent less compared to February 2015.
PokerStars, which has about 70 percent of the worldwide online poker market, launched a ring-fenced platform in New Jersey in March 2016. In every month from then up until March 2017, online poker revenue had increased year-over-year.
PokerStars has been under fire lately from the professional poker player community over what poker pros see as a shift in focus to online casino games other than poker
Poker sites under the Borgata umbrella had $651,000 in online poker revenue last month. Caesars Interactive had $693,000, while Resorts Digital (PokerStars’ partner) had $909,000.
Under New Jersey rules, an online poker firm must partner with a brick-and-mortar casino.
Borgata had more than $1 million in online poker revenue in March 2016, and Caesars had $830,000. PokerStars was online for only about the last third of March last year, but in just those 10 days of action online poker revenue for Resorts was $598,000.
According to data from PokerScout, PokerStars in New Jersey was averaging about 100 cash games players as of mid-April. Party Borgata was averaging 70. There’s no data for WSOP/888.
The most-played regulated online poker site in the U.S. is the WSOP platform in Nevada that shares players with Delaware’s industry. That platform was averaging 150 players.
There’s a silver lining for New Jersey’s March performance, but not for poker players.
The good news is that last month, for the first time ever, overall internet casino win for Atlantic City casinos broke the $20-million mark. Regulators said that online gambling revenue was $21.7 million in March, besting the previous record of $18.8 million from January 2017.
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