With regulated online poker up and running in New Jersey for about a week now, the natural question on many people’s minds is: how is it doing? To paraphrase Larry David, “Prettay, prettay, prettay, prettay well.”
Now make no mistake, the New Jersey internet poker sites aren’t going to come close to the main versions of PokerStars, Full Tilt Poker, or iPoker any time soon, but considering their youth and geographic constraints, it has been an encouraging start. According to PokerScout.com, a site which tracks online poker cash game traffic, two New Jersey sites have already overtaken all of the Nevada poker rooms.
The Party Borgata network, which encompasses both bwin.party poker sites in the Garden State (NJ.PartyPoker.com and Borgatapoker.com), has already seen its seven-day average cash game player figure climb to 170, just 20 players shy of the Revolution Gaming Network, which accepts players from all over the world, including the United States. WSOP.com has a seven day average of 130 cash game players. Combined, the two account for almost all of the cash game traffic in New Jersey. Party Borgata alone makes up more than half.
For comparison, WSOP.com in Nevada has a seven day average of 110 cash game players, while Ultimate Poker has fallen to 85 after several months as the only player in the Silver State.
Both Party Borgata and WSOP.com have been trending almost exclusively upwards when looking at daily peak traffic, as well. On the official launch date of November 26th (after five days of a soft launch period), Party Borgata’s peak traffic was 295 cash game players. Aside from a dip the day after Thanksgiving, that number has increased every day; yesterday’s tally was 501. WSOP.com has had more down days than Party Borgata, but the overall trend is still positive. It actually peaked slightly higher than Party Borgata on November 26th, topping out at 300 players, but declined the next couple days before picking it back up again. Yesterday, WSOP fielded 384 cash game players at its peak.
As mentioned, Party Borgata and WSOP.com have dominated online poker traffic in New Jersey so far. After them, it’s a gigantic drop to the All American Poker Network (888poker.com), which has a seven day average of just 28 players. Ultimate Poker only has 20 cash game players. The Golden Nugget participated in the soft launch, but wanted to continue testing before officially going live, which should happen soon. Revel and the Atlantic Club do supposedly have online gaming partners, but have not moved because of finances. Resorts International and PokerStars want to get going, but have not gotten regulatory approval yet.
Tropicana (with Gamesys) and Trump Plaza (with Betfair) have launched their offerings, but so far have limited themselves to only casino games such as slots and blackjack.