New Jersey Online Gambling Brief January 9, 2014
The big story of the week was certainly the newly announced deal between partypoker and the New Jersey Devils and Philadelphia 76ers, but that wasn’t the only news coming out of the New Jersey iGaming market during the first few days of January. In addition to the historic deal, we also saw online poker traffic numbers surge forward since the calendar turned to 2014, as well as an appeal in the never-ending saga of the Atlantic Club.
In this week’s New Jersey Online Gambling Brief we’ll discuss these stories and a whole lot more.
Traffic numbers in NJ continue to climb
After a lull during the holiday season the traffic numbers for the top three New Jersey online poker rooms all saw a significant uptick during the first week of 2014.
The network of NJ.PartyPoker.com and BorgataPoker.com are still in possession of a near 50% market share, but WSOP.com and US.888Poker.com both saw a marked increase in their player bases according to www.pokerscout.com. Party is the clear front runner, but the two 888 Holdings powered rooms are holding their own.
The one room that didn’t gain was UltimatePoker.com, which is still bringing up the rear with negligible traffic numbers up to this point. Ultimate Poker has struggled to compete with the more established online poker providers that have entered the New Jersey iGaming fray, but the Fertittas still haven’t unleashed what is expected to be a robust marketing effort; so don’t give up on Ultimate Poker just yet.
Here is a look at the 7-day rolling averages for each site according to PokerScout.com:
- Party/Borgata: 280 players
- WSOP.com: 170 players
- All American Poker Network: 110 players
- Ultimate Poker: 20 players
Party Poker inks historic deal with Devils and 76ers franchises
It doesn’t appear that Party Poker will be content to sit on its lead in the New Jersey market, considering the bombshell announcement they dropped on Wednesday.
In a historic deal, Party Poker has joined forces with two of the most recognizable franchises in US sports, the NHL’s New Jersey Devils and the NBA’s Philadelphia 76ers. Thanks to the deal, Party Poker will become the official online gaming site of both franchises—which happen to be owned by the same group.
We’re still waiting on the specifics of the multi-year agreement, but if European soccer clubs are any indication, you can expect to see prominent signage at 76ers and Devils games, as well as media blitzes through radio and television.
We’ll have more details regarding the deal in next week’s column.
Sobe Holdings not ready to let go of Atlantic Club bid
The Atlantic Club has me feeling a bit like Michael Corleone, “Just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in!”
Here I thought the auction, and the subsequent judicial ruling on the sale of the Atlantic Club had brought the story to a close, but Sobe Holdings (the actual highest bidder, although their bid was rejected for being more risky) is ready to file an appeal to try and stop the liquidation of the Atlantic Club by Caesars and the Golden Nugget.
Sobe’s bid was higher, but was only $1 million more than the price the Golden Nugget and Caesars were willing to part with, but the two bidders have drastically different plans for the Atlantic Club.
Caesars and the Golden Nugget plan on closing down the storied casino and stripping the Atlantic Club of its gaming equipment and any usable hotel assets. Sobe Holdings plan was to renovate and rebrand the hotel/casino and try to make the Atlantic Club profitable once again—considering the struggles of casinos up and down the Boardwalk you can understand why this was considered the riskier proposition, even though it might save 1,600 jobs.
Chances are this is not the last word on the Atlantic Club.
We thought you should know…
- Robert DellaFave has posted his “Six Weeks In” reviews of all of the New Jersey online poker sites at OnlinePokerReport.com.
- New Jersey legislators have passed a bill that attempts to strike an old law from the books. The bill (if signed into law) would clarify precisely what constitutes a game of skill in New Jersey.
- Attendance for the $50k Guaranteed at Party Poker hit the 277 player mark this past Sunday, so once again no overlay, while WSOP.com’s $10k Guaranteed on Saturday featured a $4,100 overlay and the Sunday $25k Guaranteed at WSOP.com featured a $2,400 overlay.
