A Timeline of New Jersey Online Poker Traffic Surrounding the PokerStars Launch

Believe it or not, it has been a month since PokerStars triumphantly returned to the United States with online poker in New Jersey.

Most players feel the launch has been a success due to the new offering of games and the world-class software and support provided by PokerStars, but the real question surrounds the traffic in the Garden State. Thanks to figures provided by PokerScout, we were able to dig in to the numbers a little bit.

Here is a timeline of trends of online ring-game traffic on New Jersey regulated poker networks:

March 11

Based off of PokerScout’s seven-day moving-average, New Jersey regulated online poker rooms featured a total of 303 ring-game players on March 11, 2016, or a little less than a week before the launch of PokerStars NJ. On this date, players on the WSOP NJ/888poker NJ network accounted for 178 of those players, or 58.75 percent. It’s only regulated competitor at the time, the partypoker NJ/BorgataPoker network, accounted for the remaining 125 players, or 41.25 percent.

Something of note is that the NJ ring-game traffic was already down a significant 28 percent when compared to the same date a year ago, with a total of 421 ring-game players based off a seven-day average. Also on this date, traffic was more evenly split with 208 players on the WSOP NJ/888poker NJ network (49.4 percent) and 213 players on the partypoker NJ/BorgataPoker network (50.6 percent).

March 18

One day after the soft launch of PokerStars NJ on March 18, 2016, ring-game traffic increased by 34.7 percent to 408 players. While this was primarily propelled by the average of 91 players on PokerStars NJ, WSOP NJ/888poker NJ also increased its traffic by 12.4 percent to 200 players. On the flip side, traffic on partypoker NJ/BorgataPoker was down 6.4 percent to 117 players.

At this point in time, the WSOP NJ/888poker NJ was still the New Jersey market leader for ring games with 49 percent of the traffic. Partypoker NJ/BorgataPoker was in second place with 28.7 percent, and PokerStars NJ quickly captured 22.3 percent.

As a whole, the numbers are relatively flat compared to a year ago, with just a 1.9-percent decrease from the 416 players PokerScout reported for March 18, 2015. Such a small decrease is a positive sign, as with many players flocking to the popular lottery-style Spin & Go events, the ring-game traffic maintained.

March 21

March 21 marked the official hard launch of PokerStars NJ, however, traffic was slightly down 3.2 percent with 395 ring-game players based off a seven-day average. However, this is still a significant 30.4-percent increase in traffic when compared to before the launch on March 11.

Traffic as a whole decreased by 6 percent when compared to 420 seats reported on March 21, …

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