Online poker growth is up 30%
A mini-boom is on the cards during the latest European lockdown and some operators have really seen the benefit.
Our friends at pokerfuse and GamingIntel have reported some very positive numbers for poker as most of Europe is back in some form of lockdown, ahead of what is seasonally the busiest period for poker anyway.
Cash game traffic has picked up across the board in the Europe facing poker networks and pokerfuse have reported a 30% year-on-year growth across all the major networks, much of which came in the summer, usually a very quiet period.
The major dot-com networks have seen the following growth in the last 12 months:
- 888poker – Up 2%
- PokerStars – Up 7%
- Unibet – Up 11%
- Partypoker – Up 30%
- iPoker – Up 62%
- GGPoker – Up 208%
iPoker is up by such a large degree because they acquired a number of MPN skins when that closed down. partypoker and GGPoker are up by big amounts because they capitalised on the lockdowns with long big guaranteed festivals. PokerStars has shown comparatively modest growth but they are the market leader with less room to expand.
What can we do to retain these new players?
US facing poker rooms are on a similar trajectory and there is an air of positivity in the US market following Joe Biden becoming President-elect. It is thought he will look to abandon the long running attempt to reinterpret the Wire Act that has hampered online poker in the US for 14 years.
With the incredibly positive news of a vaccine for COVID-19 looking imminent, it looks like this mini-boom the online poker industry is enjoying won't last forever. Although more broadly the poker industry will benefit from widespread reopening of live poker rooms and large poker festivals.
The question this time around, as a second poker traffic uptick is inevitable in the winter months, is what can online poker operators do to retain their newly found customers when the world gets back to some sort of normality?
Have the games got softer for you this last few weeks? Let us know in the comments:
