It is still not remotely close to being a “big” online poker site, but Caesars Interactive Entertainment’s WSOP.com finally started picking up steam during its first full week in operation. According to PokerScout.com’s Weekly Online Poker Traffic Update, the World Series of Poker-branded poker room has made inroads in Nevada, grabbing market share away from Ultimate Poker.
WSOP.com launched two weeks ago to great fanfare. Expectations were high for the second intrastate online poker room in Nevada; it was owned by one of the world’s largest gambling companies, it had the most recognizable brand in poker, and it ran established, solid software provided by 888 Holdings. But its first few days were underwhelming. On its first day, it achieved a maximum of 113 cash game players, fewer than Ultimate Poker’s 136 on its launch day. Traffic fell each of WSOP.com’s next two days before peaking at 152 on its fourth day, a Sunday. Ultimate Poker’s cash game traffic rose every day for the first four days, peaking at 250 on day four.
As we said, though, things are starting to pick up for WSOP.com. Peak traffic was up and down most of last week, but going into the weekend, there was notable improvement. Last Friday, peak traffic was 167 players, followed by days of 171, 149, 152, and 156. While those numbers still aren’t better than Ultimate Poker’s, the fact that they have risen and stayed at that level is encouraging.
And while WSOP.com is going up, Ultimate Poker is going down. It only makes sense. As they are the only two legal, regulated sites currently live in Nevada, gains made by one will be reflected, at least somewhat, in losses by the other, barring an overall market expansion. According to PokerScout, last Friday was Ultimate Poker’s worst day in terms of average player counts since May 3rd, just a few days after its April 30th launch. Since the WSOP.com went live, Ultimate Poker’s average traffic is down by almost a third.
Ultimate Poker is still bigger than WSOP.com, though, boasting a seven-day average of 135 cash game players compared to 67 for WSOP. That makes Ultimate Poker the 37th largest poker room or network in the industry, while WSOP.com is 42nd.
Caesars puts some of the blame for its slow start on itself, as WSOP.com’s introduction has been a “soft launch,” that is, a launch was little-to-no advertising or promotion. Caesars plans to start a marketing campaign soon, so it will be interesting to see what sort of uptick the site gets after spreading the word to a wider audience. Ultimate Poker may actually be helped by a WSOP ad blitz, as well, as greater awareness of WSOP.com could lead to greater awareness of Nevada online poker and, in turn, Ultimate Poker.
