WSOP.com Currently Enjoying A Poker Boom In Nevada

Home » Poker News » WSOP.com Currently Enjoying A Poker Boom In Nevada

Friday, June 6th, 2014 | Written by Shane Larson

Ahead of the 45th annual World Series Of Poker in Las Vegas, the organization announced a wide ranging cross-promotional campaign to integrate its legal online poker offering, WSOP.com, with tournament poker’s annual showcase extravaganza. One week into the 65 bracelet Series and already the arrangement has had a marked effect on cash-game volume, which has soared along with increased player awareness.

WSOP.com bucking state trend

Before the WSOP kicked-off at the end of May, the state of Nevada released its online poker figures revealing a huge 14.5% drop in revenues to $792,000, down from the $926,000 generated in March. With the onset of this year’s WSOP at the Rio All Suites Hotel & Casino, however, WSOP.com has seen its cash-game player traffic soar and since May 27th has increased roughly 50% from 97 players to around 140.

Cash-game traffic subsequently peaked at 373 players on June 2nd, putting WSOP.com ahead of its New Jersey counterpart, which has been averaging around 120 players over the same time period, according to tracking site PokerScout. Making the site’s performance even more impressive is the fact global online cash-game traffic fell by 4.4% between May 26th and June 2nd.

Ultimate Poker traffic largely unaffected

Despite Ultimate Poker being the first online poker site to launch in Nevada back in April, 2013, WSOP.com, which launched in November has since grown to become the state’s market leader accounting for two-thirds of state revenues. Interestingly, while the WSOP.com has been reaping the rewards of the 2014 WSOP, Nevada’s second biggest regulated poker site, Ultimate Poker, has remained largely unaffected with an average of 50 cash-game players over a seven-day-period, although it did see its traffic peak at 138 active cash game players on May 28th.

Reasons for dramatic rise in cash-game players

At the heart of WSOP.com’s impressive results is the success of its comprehensive campaign to ensure visitors to WSOP 2014 receive the maximum exposure to its product. In a departure from previous years, players in WSOP tournaments are now allowed to play internet poker while competing in live WSOP events, or alternatively play on laptops in the Lambada Room at the Rio Convention Center.

Other facilities and promotions designed to drive players to the WSOP.com site include the ability of poker players to make online cash deposits at the casino cage, daily WSOP satellites running for live events, and the entire Rio being covered in an array of WSOP.com logos, banners and other ads. Ahead of the 2014 WSOP getting underway, Lee Davy from calvinayre summed up some of the big changes made, explaining:

“They believe there will be more people than ever, and as such have increased the number of cage windows and personnel. They also made a point of stressing the importance of bringing the fun back into the game and talked about the Rio’s new zip line attraction, new chairs, and a whole host of pre-tournament festivities designed to keep the players occupied. The dreadful food options have gotten slightly better with the introduction of a new Hash House A-Go-Go.”

2014 WSOP off to a great start

In addition to the sweeping cross-promotional campaign implemented by WSOP.com, the Silver State is also experiencing a huge spike in traffic as visitors from over 100 countries descend upon Las Vegas for the 45th annual World Series Of Poker. From the 80,000 players then expected to take part in the Series 75% are expected to come from the United States, with the remaining 25% hailing from Canada, Australia and Europe.

Furthermore, the WSOP is enjoying a bumper start to proceedings with many top names already winning prestigious gold bracelets, including Vanessa Selbst in the $25k NL Mixed Max (Event #2) for $871,148; Ted Forest in the $1,500 Seven Card Razz (Event #7) for $121,196; Brock Parker in the $10k Limit Omaha Hi/Lo (Event #10) for $443,407; Justin Bonomo in the $1,500 NL Six Handed (Event #11) for $449,980; and Paul Volpe in the $10k NL 2-7 Lowball (Event #13) for $253,524.

Finally, big names such as Daniel Negreanu and Phil Helmuth Jr reaching the heads-up stages of final tables has also attracted a great deal of extra media attention, as did a new tournament called the NL Millionaire Maker (Event #8), which turned out to be the second-largest live poker tournament in history with 7,976 players. The $1,500 buy-in event was eventually won by a 31-year-old MBA-degree holder from Buffalo who subsequently walked away richer to the tune of $1,319,587.