Not long ago, we posted an article about how the 2014 WSOP was likely to provide a big boost to the struggling Nevada online poker market. And while we freely admit that this isn’t exactly the prediction of the century, the ‘WSOP Effect’ has driven WSOP.com to become the United States’ largest regulated poker site. Let’s take a closer look at this rapid traffic spike and discuss if the other two Nevada poker sites are benefiting from the upward trend.
WSOP.com traffic has increased by 50%
In the middle of May, just before players began arriving in Las Vegas, the WSOP’s poker site had a 7-day average of 97 cash game players. As we now enter the middle of June, the online poker room have seen their cash traffic rise to 150 players an hour. During this span, WSOP.com also hit a peak of 419 players during one hour. Thanks to their 150-player average, this internet poker room have now become America’s biggest, surpassing Party Borgata NJ (140 players).
What’s truly impressive about this is that worldwide internet poker traffic has fallen by 4.5% over the past month, which is typical for the summer. Moreover, WSOP.com are vastly outperforming the tiny Nevada internet poker market, which fell by 14.5% in April.
Is the wealth being shared?
While it’s definitely great that one site is performing so well in Nevada, things don’t look so good across the board. Nevada’s second-leading site, Ultimate Poker, hardly benefits from the rush of players to Vegas as their cash numbers have risen from 50 to 55 players since mid-May. Real Gaming, which continue to slowly work on their product, are barely generating any traffic.
The WSOP made a concentrated effort to cross-promote their poker site with the 65-event live tournament series. These measures included creating a “Grind Room,” offering on-site cage deposits, and heavily advertising the online poker room around the Rio. Thanks to this massive effort, WSOP.com can look forward to a giant two-month traffic spike.
Unfortunately, once mid-July rolls around and thousands of players retreat back to their out-of-state homes, WSOP.com traffic will settle back to where it was before the series began.