New Jersey Online Gambling Brief: New Tier at Party, CI Poll Results, and More
New Jersey’s online gambling industry is currently experiencing its first hiccup, as traffic numbers continue to slide in the market, but we can’t lose sight of the newness of the industry, and that these types of minor setbacks are to be expected.
In this week’s New Jersey Online Gambling Brief we’ll discuss the current slide, but we’ll also bring you some brighter news (not everything can be somber) as we examine the results of the CI poll conducted back in February, see what’s new in partypoker’s VIP Program, compare a couple of online casinos, and a whole lot more.
CI Poll results revealed
Earlier this year a poll conducted in New Jersey by the group Commercial Intelligence started to get a lot of attention after it was first mentioned at a gaming conference in London back in February.
At the time we did not have the actual results of the research (CI polled 506 New Jersey online gamblers for the study) so we were reliant on the results being touted by CI themselves. But now the full results have been released, and they are quite interesting in several respects.
The most interesting aspect of the results is the apparent lack of understanding by the respondents when it comes to the difference between illegal and legal online gambling sites, as a significant percentage of respondents claimed to engage in online gambling activity that remains illegal in New Jersey but thought they were doing so at “approved” sites.
Another interesting tidbit of information was that 35% of respondents only began gambling online after the launch of licensed online gambling in New Jersey. A number that suggests the Poker Boom could have potentially been 33% bigger.
Taking this a step further, we can also start to see the potential for a second Poker Boom, which would be a nice development.
Online poker traffic continues to slide
New Jersey’s cash game traffic has been sliding for weeks, but now the decline seems to have spread to tournament traffic as well.
This past weekend traffic was down across the board in the Sunday Majors, with three of the four events handing out four-figure overlays:
- partypoker $50k Guaranteed: 280 entries created a $51,800 prize-pool
- WSOP.com $25k Guaranteed: 117 entries created a prize-pool of $25,000 ($1,600 overlay)
- Ultimate Poker $20k Guaranteed: 107 entries created a prize-pool of $20,000 ($9,300 overlay)
- 888 Poker $10k Guaranteed: 48 entries created a prize-pool of $10,000 ($2,045 overlay)
Palladium Elite tier coming to partypoker NJ
After eliminating the highest tier of their VIP Loyalty Program for their global online poker room last year, partypoker has had an apparent change of heart, and will be reintroducing the Palladium Elite level, along with hosting a VIP Launch Party for New Jersey players.
Palladium Elite’s at partypoker are the VIP’s. Anyone attaining this level will get exclusive access to VIP events, a private gaming concierge, discounts in the partypoker VIP store, and of course better return rates when cashing in your partypoker points.
So what’s the launch party all about? Here is the press release from partypoker:
“We’re throwing open the doors of our VIP Launch Party to celebrate the introduction of Palladium Elite loyalty level in New Jersey! Be a Silver, Gold, Palladium or Palladium Elite player by April 18th and you’ll get a taste of the VIP lifestyle. We’ve got an exclusive NJCOP VIP Freeroll that will put you in every NJCOP tournament for free! Anyone who is Palladium Elite by April 16th will get a ticket to the freeroll that starts at 19:30ET on April 17th, and if you end up in one of the top 5 spots you’ll get a $2,000 buy-in package. The tournament can be found in the restricted section of the Tournament tab in your account.”
New Jersey traffic numbers
As strong as New Jersey came out of the gate their decline over the past four to six weeks has been just as dramatic.
At its height, the New Jersey online poker industry had cumulative average traffic of over 550 cash game players; now, just two months later, cumulative traffic is around 400 players according to www.pokerscout.com’s data.
This week, Party / Borgata dropped to 170 average cash-game players, while WSOP.com could soon be at 1/2 it’s traffic high (200 players in January) with average cash-game traffic numbers now at 120 players.
888 remains in 3rd place, but traffic has dipped from 120 average cash-game players to 85, while Ultimate Poker has gone from a paltry 16 players to just 6.
We thought you should know…
VirginCasino.com vs. TropicanaCasino.com, who you got?
The tandem of Tropicana and Gamesys has been one of the early surprises in the New Jersey iGaming market even though they are only offering online casino games at this point — they are expected to launch an online poker room this year.
One of the factors that has contributed to their early success is brand recognition; two brands to be precise: Tropicana and Virgin.
While both casinos use the same software and offer the same game, they are not exactly the same, as Robert DellaFave explains in this article comparing the two casino skins.
NJ Payment Processing Report
John Mehaffey has been compiling payment processing reports for the unlicensed US facing online poker rooms for quite some time, and now the veteran poker writer is turning his eye toward the licensed market, compiling a list of the New Jersey online poker payment processing options.
You can find Mehaffey’s analysis here
WSOP.com launches Android app
This week WSOP.com launched an Android version of their mobile app for New Jersey players. Android (collectively) is the largest mobile operating system, so hopefully the new app can pull in some new players for the site.
For more on the new Android app you can check out this review from onlinepokerreport.com.
