PokerStars Traffic Boosted by Targetted Promotions

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Friday, January 20th, 2017 | Written by Adam Brown

Industry experts used to focus on cash game revenues when assessing the health and success of online poker sites, but in recent years, the focus has shifted elsewhere. This has led many analysts to suggest that cash games are are no longer a viable metric for measuring the success of iPoker sites. Based on the results that PokerStars has seen from its recent cash game promotion, however, we may have to once again rethink the importance of cash games.

PokerStars Milestone Hands

From December 19th through December 28th, PokerStars’ Milestone Hands gave every 5,000th player a $30 cash bonus, with the winner of the hand receiving an extra $30 bonus. Although the size of these prizes was relatively low, the frequency with which they were doled out made the promotion appealing. Coupled with the small number of players actually on PokerStars New Jersey, the site may have found a recipe for future success, as the players had a very high chance of receiving bonuses, and they kept on playing as a result.

Surge in Traffic

At the end of last year, PokerStars New Jersey reported a large uptick in traffic with its Milestone Hands Christmas Festival promotion. In fact, cash game volume increased to the highest level since the sight launched back in March 2016, with PokerStars’ seven-day average liquidity rising to 209, a 71.3 percent increase over where it had been at the start of the promotion.

No New Jersey poker site has seen liquidity averages that high since WSOP NJ’s most successful week at the end of February 2016. While the Milestone Hands was a major success, it’s important to put the results of the promotion in context. Because the game is a microstakes format, PokerStars average rake per hand likely fell during the promotion, and it’s difficult to know whether the increase in traffic was enough to offset that loss.

However, PokerStars continued to see elevated liquidity levels in the early part of January, suggesting that some players enjoyed the experience enough to continue to play even after the promotion ended.

Christmas Festival Promotion

The Milestone Hands formed one part of the PokerStars Christmas Festival promotion, which also proved an all round successful affair. Throughout the promotional campaign, PokerStars increased all major guarantees by 20 percent, leading to increased play on many of the site’s games.

In fact, all five major tournaments smashed their prize pool guarantees, with Supersonic and Nightly Stars soaring past their minimum benchmarks by more than 50 percent; the Big Monday Special attracting enough players to create a prize pool worth a whopping $60,089; and the High Roller event fielding 38 entrants with a prize pool of $26,320. Some industry insiders believe that Milestone Hands may have been responsible for some of this success, with players who came to the site for the cash game checking out the other games as well.

Sustaining Momentum

PokerStars is clearly hoping to sustain the success they enjoyed at the close of 2016 with the last time the New Jersey market enjoying around 400 cash game players during the Cash Royal promotion in early 2015. PokerStars NJ now seems determined to hold onto its new players, but whether it will try to do so through cash games, other promotions or a mix of both is unclear. What is certain, however, is that its cash game offerings need to be better positioned during promotional campaigns in order to attract better quality traffic.

Latest Update

New Jersey’s online poker market generated revenues of $2,101,485 in December, marking a slight 0.9% improvement over November’s figure. The biggest slice of the revenue pie was held by PokerStars with $808,849, or a 38.5 percent share of the market, with WSOP/888 second at $667,264, and Party Borgata third with $625,372.

PokerStars only launched in New Jersey on March 21st, and in the second half of 2016 the site enjoyed a 39.25 percent market share, with both WSOP/888 (30.8%) and Party/Borgata (30%) a fair way behind. Nevertheless, in H1 2016 the New Jersey poker market only grew by 11.2 percent, suggesting that instead of growing the market PokerStars likely cannibalized revenues from the state’s existing operators.

Finally, a look at PokerScout‘s latest ‘Online Poker Traffic Report’ for the New Jersey Poker market during the third week of January shows a total of 365 cash game players over a 7-day period, with PokerStars leading the way (150), followed by WSOP/888 (140), and finally Party Borgata (75).