Nevada Online Poker Jumps 20% In June

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Monday, July 28th, 2014 | Written by Stephen Smith

In June, Nevada‘s internet poker market raked in $1.037 million in revenues, a 20.3% increase compared to the $862,000 generated in May and representing the first time more than $1 million in revenues has been attained. During the month, online poker action was given a boost by the prestigious 45th Annual World Series of Poker, which took place in Las Vegas from the end of May up to mid-July, and attracted 82,360 poker players from 107 different countries across the globe.

Including revenues from brick-and-mortar casinos, The Silver State brought in $906.9 million from gamblers in June, a 14% rise from the same month a year earlier. Nevada subsequently collected $44 million in gambling taxes in June, up almost 1% year-over-year.

Las Vegas Strip buoyed by 2014 WSOP

Las Vegas’ six-week long tournament poker festival helped draw thousands of gamblers to the state, as reflected by the action reported on The Strip with revenues soaring by 22.5% to $532.4 million.

During the month, The Strip collected $291.4 million from table games, $132.8 million of which came from baccarat, up 155% from June 2013; while slot machines took $241 million, up 9% and putting a halt to two consecutive months of slot revenue declines.

As a whole, Clark County generated 17% more gaming revenue than a year earlier, with North Las Vegas casinos up 22.7% in June, Downtown casinos up 12%, and the Boulder Strip up 17%.

Nevada’s WSOP seemed to have a lesser impact on revenues outside of its Las Vegas epicenter, and in the Northern Nevada markets gaming revenues were lower, with Washoe County down 3%, Reno casinos down 3.1%, and North Lake Tahoe down by 15.4%.

Annual casino revenues up 2.9% to $11.2bn

The Nevada Gaming Control Board also released the state’s gaming revenue total for the whole of fiscal year 2014 (July 2013 to June 2014), revealing a 2.9% rise in revenues to $11.2 billion. The ongoing momentum in Nevada’s casino market was highlighted last month when revenues were up by 8% to $970.3 million, prompting J.P. Morgan gaming analyst Joe Greff, to comment:

“We maintain our positive outlook for the Las Vegas Strip and believe the overall recovery will continue as 2014 progresses.”

Online poker passes $1 million

This year’s World Series of Poker was a test case for the state’s online poker industry, which has been struggling to gain traction since being regulated in April 2013. Fortunately, as expected, the showcase series created a tremendous amount of interest in the state’s online poker offering, especially WSOP.com, which benefited from a comprehensive cross-promotional marketing campaign linking its product to the 2014 World Series of Poker.

In June, Nevada’s three regulated poker sites, WSOP.com, Ultimate Poker and Real Gaming, collected a combined $1.037 million in revenues, $175,000 more than in May.

The lion’s share of revenues, however, were generated by WSOP.com, which saw its traffic soar exponentially in June and even managed to supplant Party Borgata (NJ) and WSOP (NJ) as the country’s biggest online poker sites. At one stage Nevada WSOP.com enjoyed 150 cash game players over a seven day period, although its numbers have since subsided to 120, with Bill Rini, Head of Online Poker for Caesars Interactive Entertainment, stating at the time:

“The traffic increase has been fantastic. Our seven-day moving average numbers moved from about 110 pre-WSOP to 150 at one point. When you consider this is a 24-hour average rather than peak, that’s a pretty big jump. In fact, WSOP.com Nevada has become the largest regulated online poker site [in the country]. Our numbers have exceeded the largest sites in New Jersey which has three times the population of Nevada. So for us, that’s very exciting.”

Following the 2014 WSOP coming to a close, traffic at Party Borgata (NJ) has stayed steady at 140, although WSOP (NJ) has recently reported a slight uptick in traffic and currently has a 7 day average of 140 cash game players, and a 24 hour peak of 277.

Interstate compact the way forward

In spite of the encouraging results, online poker continues to account for just a tiny percentage of the state’s gambling revenues. The situation is unlikely to alter much, either, until regulated state’s find a way of coordinating their igaming activities. Nevada, for instance, has a population of 2.76 million people, while that number drops to just 917k for Delaware.

Needless to say such small populations are not ideal for supporting online poker ecosystems, and so earlier this year the two states agreed to share their player pools in order to make their industries more viable, and hopefully entice other US states to come off the fence and join them. As Union Gaming Group analyst Robert Shore, explains:

“In the future, multi-state poker compacts could be a more impactful revenue event given a larger base of players, and due to the liquidity dynamic.”