Delaware iPoker Down 19% To $31,248 In August

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Wednesday, September 23rd, 2015 | Written by Charles Washington

Out of the USA’s three online poker markets, Delaware is by far the smallest and this is constantly reflected in state’s paltry monthly revenue results. This is hardly surprising seeing as Delaware has a population of less than 900,000 people, and online poker is a liquidity dependent game which needs a large pool of players to function effectively. Nevertheless, the $31,248 Delaware’s iPoker operators generated in August will still come as a major disappointment, representing as it does a 19% drop from the $38,654 that was collected in August 2014. Delaware’s overall iGambling market fared only slightly better, too, with revenues falling 8% to $158,980 compared to the same month last year, although that sum was still the highest monthly tally generated by the First State so far in 2015.

iPoker Market Shrinking

Whilst Delaware’s iPoker revenues shrunk year-over-year, it at least showed a gain of 11% compared to the $28,158 that was collected in July. From that figure, Delaware Park saw its online poker revenue increase by 12.8% to $21,793, accounting for roughly 70 percent of the state’s online poker revenues. Dover Downs also noted a 22% improvement in revenues to $6,198, although Harrington Raceway bucked the trend, with business shrinking 13.4% to $3,256.

The latest iPoker figures are particularly worrying, though, as earlier this year there were high hopes a landmark liquidity sharing agreement with Nevada would significantly help to boost Delaware’s player traffic and revenues. Nevertheless, the combined traffic for the Delaware/Nevada iPoker network is currently showing just 150 cash game players over a 7-day period, of which most are undoubtedly from Nevada.

Online Casinos and Slots Positive

On the other side of the state’s iGaming industry, video lottery games enjoyed their most successful month to date, with revenues rising by 12% to $84,362 in August, from the $75,319 collected the previous month. In addition, online casino table games recorded a fourth consecutive month of growth, with revenues up by 12.6% to $38,605 from July. From that total, Delaware Park generated $18,641 in revenues, followed by Dover Downs ($15,171) and Harrington Raceway ($9,656).

iGaming Revenues Peak In August

Delaware’s overall iGaming revenues, including iPoker, amounted to $158,980 in August, which was the highest amount generated by the state so far this year. While that figure was 8% down compared to the $173,096 generated in August 2015, it still marked a 12 percent improvement versus the previous month’s total of $142,083. However, new player signups dropped to just 316 players from the 378 who registered for new accounts in July, with Dover Downs the only operator experiencing a slight month-to-month gain, albeit by a mere 8 players.

Lack Of Liquidity

It is no surprise that more than two years after Nevada, Delaware and New Jersey took advantage of a re-interpreted UIGEA to introduce regulated online poker markets of their own, no other states have been tempted to follow suit. Each month, all three markets fail to impress with their iPoker revenues which consistently come in significantly below their original pre-regulation predictions. At the heart of the problem is a lack of liquidity in the individual state markets, whose populations are too small to support a viable poker ecology.

Had the US government decided to go with a federal solution instead of a state-by-state one, this situation could have been resolved. However, fragmenting the market has only added further to the untenable situation, and in November 2014, Nevada even lost the country’s first ever regulated online poker room. As Ultimate Gaming Chairman Tom Breitling, explained at the time:

“As has been the case in other jurisdictions, online poker revenues in Nevada have fallen far short of original projections. Moreover, the state-by-state approach to online gaming has created an extremely cost-prohibitive and challenging operating environment. These factors have combined to make the path to profitability very difficult and uncertain. Consequently, we have decided to cease operations.

California To The Rescue?

Without a federal iPoker solution on the horizon, the country’s best hope for restoring its once thriving online poker market would be if some of its larger states, such as California and New York, adopted regulation of their own. Not only would their individual state populations of 38.8m people, and 19.7 million respectively be big enough to support their own iPoker industries, but they could then organize a shared network which other smaller states could subsequently be invited to join.