I predict that Pokerstars New Jersey will be a failure

[Dan Druff]

Before I begin, let me make something clear.

I want Pokerstars New Jersey to succeed. I want SOMETHING in legalized US online poker to become a success. So far, every legalized online poker site has been an embarrassing failure, and has fallen WAY short of expectations -- by a staggering margin (like a factor of 10, last I heard).

If legalized online poker doesn't translate to nice profits for the companies offering it, then these companies will stop fighting for it. In fact, not only will they stop fighting, they'll stop even bothering to offer it even if it becomes legal.

Right now, Bovada is absolutely dominating the US market, despite being an illegal room. They aren't just winning. They're crushing. True, they have an unfair advantage in an unrestricted player pool (aside from the states they self-prohibit), but the bottom line is that legalized online poker just hasn't worked.

Legalized online poker has existed in 3 states. Let's look at each:


Nevada

Ultimate Poker: CLOSED. Despite being first to market, this room was a huge failure, lost huge money, and is now gone.

WSOP.com Nevada: 150 average cash players online -- mostly microlimits. This is not what Caesars pictured when they spent considerable money to market and develop this site for the Nevada market. Despite being the ONLY viable legal site to play in Nevada, the numbers have stayed flat, and in fact have slowly declined over time. Even during WSOP, when you would expect a massive spike in players, it failed to even double its weak traffic during that time. To say this site is going nowhere is an understatement.

Real Gaming: Open, but no games ever run here. And I mean that. Literally zero games are usually running. This site should be put out to pasture immediately.



Delaware

The only running online poker site in this tiny state merged with WSOP.COM Nevada. So they now have combined player pools, which added just about nothing overall, since the Delaware legalized online poker scene never had players in the first place. At least you can play WSOP Nevada if you're in Delaware, which I guess is nice if that's where you live.



New Jersey

This is so far the biggest state (population-wise) to offer online poker. By comparison, Delaware has about 1 million people, Nevada has about 3 million people, and New Jersey has about 9 million.

Taking a look at the online poker offerings there:

Ultimate Poker: CLOSED. Yep, failed here, too. Ironically, they held off on improving their Nevada product (which was first to market, and heavily criticized) in favor of developing the New Jersey one. Oops.

WSOP.com New Jersey: Despite a merged player pool with 888.com New Jersey, they average an unexciting 170 cash players.

Borgata/Party Poker New Jersey: 110 average players. Prior to the launch of Pokerstars, this was the only other option in New Jersey aside from 888.



So that's a pretty sad reality. Delaware and Nevada combine for 4 million people, yet average 150 cash players online. New Jersey has 9 million people, yet averages a bit less than 300 cash players online. Makes you wonder if even a California online poker room will have much traffic, even with their 38 million population.

But back to Pokerstars.

It soft launched on March 18, with a player cap of 500. On March 21, we had a real launch. Now there is no limit of players, but people are not flocking there in droves.

Right now it's about 10pm ET as I write this (which should be near prime time), and there are 380 cash players online. That's pretty bad. Players should be excited and flooding the site, but instead the reaction has been a collective, statewide yawn. Are they doing better than WSOP and Party? Sure. Is this what Pokerstars was expecting when they fought so hard to be included in the New Jersey market? Absolutely not.

It's true that New Jersey also allows casino gambling online, whereas Nevada does not. In fact, the casino gaming is by far the bulk of these sites' revenue, while poker is producing very little, and in fact is a much bigger headache than the casino games. As you might know, poker players are very needy and vocal with their dissatisfaction, while online casino players tend to be quiet and docile (and it's much simpler to offer these games than poker, from a logistical standpoint).

The bottom line is that online poker in New Jersey has been a complete FAILURE, and only the casino portion has produced any kind of real revenue (though that was also far below projections).

I predict that Pokerstars will become the clear leader in New Jersey, but they will probably average 300-500 cash players online at best, and never really get beyond that.

This may be enough to keep them in business there once already set up, but trust me in that such numbers would be considered a failure by both industry analysts and Pokerstars executives.

If this does occur, it will be a strong blow to legalized online poker -- perhaps far more damaging than anything Sheldon Adelson could do. Pokerstars has been looked to as the savior of legalized online poker. Many have stated that legalized online poker has only failed due to poor marketing, poor customer service, and poor software. Put a highly competent company like Pokerstars in charge, and it will soar to new heights.

But will it? I sincerely doubt it. Here are the reasons legalized online poker hasn't worked, and why it won't work on a state-by-state level:


1) Player pools too small. Even 9 million people is far too small of a pool to get a meaningful player base. It's easy to forget that only a tiny percentage of the population wants to regularly play online poker, so we need a huge population pool if we want active games.

2) Too difficult to get started. The illegal rooms had a "play now, verify later" approach. That is, it was easy to sign up and deposit (even if your credit card didn't initially work), and you would go through the hassle of verifying your identity only after needing to cash out. The legalized rooms have to establish your identity first. Believe it or not, that's a big hurdle, and recreational players find it more trouble than it's worth. Remember, YOU might want to put a lot of effort to play, but recreational players do not.

3) Poor marketing, customer service, and promotions. Existing rooms have simply copied the long established formats and promotions, assuming they would translate well to the state legalized market. It hasn't. The wheel needs to be reinvented. Recreational players (or regular live players) need a reason to want to sign up and start playing -- such as no rake for the first month, or some other attractive promotion. Nothing like this has been tried yet.

4) Games aren't running regularly enough. It's time to hire props to get games running. If a recreational player signs up to play 1/2 NL and sees no games running, he closes the software and never opens it again.

5) Too difficult to deposit. Many credit card companies are still not onboard with the legalized gambling. Most recreational players want to use credit cards to play, NOT bank accounts. Add the credit card difficulty to the initial cumbersome signup process, and recreational players just don't want to deal with it.

6) Online poker is dying in the US, anyway. Even if online poker went back to the "old days" of pre-2011, there wouldn't be the enthusiasm for it that once existed. The 5-year downtime has allowed many to move on to other interests.

7) Lack of recreational players. You need them for a site to succeed. If it's mostly skilled regulars, the games won't run very much.

I don't see Pokerstars changing enough of the above to make things work.

They can do better marketing and customer service. They can modify the VIP program and promotions to attract more recreational players. But they can't change the mood of New Jersey residents, who simply don't feel like playing online poker.

Most players who had a real interest to play New Jersey online poker would be there already.

Pokerstars may introduce a better product to the market, but the market itself isn't going to grow with a better product. Instead, they will just suck traffic away from the other two rooms.

This isn't going to work.

Pokerstars is not going to rescue legalized online poker.

California, which is engaging in its own civil war among gaming entities involving legalizing online poker, is watching closely. And I guarantee you they're not going to like what they end up seeing.

[Sanlmar]

You forgot taxes. people not viewing that as a fair exchange for being lightly regulated?

[chinamaniac]

I predict that Pokerstars New Jersey will be a failure

Even u admit they will be busier than the existing fail sites and those sites are still running so wouldn't that be a success?

The fact that that stars is on US soil is somewhat of a victory for them if they plan on expanding to other states etc...

Failure compared to what? Who is saying they are going to have 10,000 active real money players? I haven't seen anyone predict anything like that. But they will be busier than anyone else in NJ that's for sure. And I don't think it is out of the question for them to be busier than your prediction but we will have to wait and see.

I do agree with most of your reasoning of why the site won't be jam packed. All of that stuff is true and the most important factor is small player pool.

Need federal legislation for EVERY state or a bunch of other states to opt in to the current system or I dont think this will be a good thing for people who want to play full time poker.

However, everyone I have spoken to in New Jersey who played online prior to Pokerstars launch told me the cash games and mtts were amazingly good.

[sah_24]

The pool is the obv problem and thats why Bovada will continue to wreck all of these sites . . .

[Dan Druff]

I predict that Pokerstars New Jersey will be a failure

Even u admit they will be busier than the existing fail sites and those sites are still running so wouldn't that be a success?

The fact that that stars is on US soil is somewhat of a victory for them if they plan on expanding to other states etc...

Failure compared to what? Who is saying they are going to have 10,000 active real money players? I haven't seen anyone predict anything like that. But they will be busier than anyone else in NJ that's for sure. And I don't think it is out of the question for them to be busier than your prediction but we will have to wait and see.

I do agree with most of your reasoning of why the site won't be jam packed. All of that stuff is true and the most important factor is small player pool.

Need federal legislation for EVERY state or a bunch of other states to opt in to the current system or I dont think this will be a good thing for people who want to play full time poker.

However, everyone I have spoken to in New Jersey who played online prior to Pokerstars launch told me the cash games and mtts were amazingly good.

I'm not talking 10,000 players either.

But there is a HUGE difference between 10,000 players and 400.

If you have something like 2,000-3,000 players, you still have a fairly decent site with some good game selection.

With 400 players, you don't, especially if most of the action is microstakes.

Everything comes down to the almighty dollar.

Pokerstars wanted into the NJ market so badly because it seemed highly profitable to be in the US again.

If they barely make any money -- or if they actually lose money -- they will not want to put much effort into getting laws changed elsewhere, nor will other states want to put much effort into legalizing it.

For a long time, it was assumed that "if only we had a Pokerstars in our legalized market", things would start working out.

Well, we have a Pokerstars, and I still don't think it's going to work out.

The legalized online poker market doesn't exist to cater to a few hundred players. If that's its ceiling, then it's doomed -- or at least until several large states get together and merge pools.

[BeerAndPoker]

To say it will be a huge failure means your expectations are too high in the first place.

The state of New Jersey has a population of 9 million people so we shouldn't expect to see tournaments with 5000 people in them from that state alone but for the market that is there they can wipe out WSOP and 888 taking a huge majority share.

On the first official night I heard somewhere that they had 40% of the market share and the software is currently full of issues that they said will take a few weeks to fix. I'd say that is decent from a percentage stand point but, of course the overall market is small.

You have to start somewhere and Pokerstars hopes that eventually more states will enter the market potentially joining the player pools together.

They also were looking at passing a bill in New Jersey where they could allow players internationally to play with New Jersey players. I don't know what happened to this or how it would work from a legality stand point but if they were able to pull something like this off then that could be huge. I doubt it happens but just saying.

Pokerstars has had a people like Jason Somerville and Chris Moneymaker streaming the NJ site games the past few days but I don't really think that helps grow the player base it's more just getting the word out that Pokerstars is back at least somewhere in the USA.

With a huge player database prior to Black Friday that gives Pokerstars an edge to blow the other New Jersey sites away BUT again as it sits now the states population is small so nobody should have any huge expectations.

A lot of this is about the end game. If Pokerstars develops a great reputation in New Jersey being the biggest legal site in any site that has them currently then if other states ever pass an online poker bill then a casino is going to want a deal with them over any other software platform.

If a country bill ever passes even if it's 10 years down the road then at that point Pokerstars would be allowed back in right away imo assuming nothing crazy happens where Amaya completely runs it to the ground by then.

[TheXFactor]

Of course it will be a complete failure.

For some stupid reason, PartyPoker and PokerStars refuse to plug in their entire player pool.

If someone goes through the hassle of opening an online poker account in New Jersey, why can't they play online poker with the rest of the world?

One thing PokerStars has mastered is whoring out their team pro's which they really don't need anymore.

[Erin Micunt]

It's been getting 1k-1.2k players a night at its peak. Only downside is spin n gos completely ruin other games on a site with a limited player pool like this.

[chinamaniac]

It's been getting 1k-1.2k players a night at its peak. Only downside is spin n gos completely ruin other games on a site with a limited player pool like this.

I've seen the 1k number in the lobby but is that all players (including play money) or real money players only ?

[chinamaniac]

Of course it will be a complete failure.

For some stupid reason, PartyPoker and PokerStars refuse to plug in their entire player pool.

If someone goes through the hassle of opening an online poker account in New Jersey, why can't they play online poker with the rest of the world?

One thing PokerStars has mastered is whoring out their team pro's which they really don't need anymore.

They aren't refusing. If they could they would but the law says they can only opffer poker etc... to people in the state

[lvpkr1009]

Well if they are hoping to get a bunch of recreational players playing on their site they have a funny way of showing it by only offering 6 max and not full ring games

[Shizzmoney]

The legalized online poker market doesn't exist to cater to a few hundred players. If that's its ceiling, then it's doomed -- or at least until several large states get together and merge pools.

Unless the states merge pools, online poker legally in the US is fucked.

I wish there could be some way where countries could also agree to join pools of players, where an online intl regulation council could oversee the framework. I understand taxation is an issue, but how difficult is it to be some way Pokerstars can just administrate it per capita in the software? Poker in Europe has waned as well due to the "poker borders" laws.

Bovada thrives not just b/c it is offered to US players.......but also the fact that those US players have a place where they can play those in France, Canada, Brazil, etc. It is infinitely easier to deposit/reload on those sites abroad as supposed to here in the US, legally or otherwise. That's why the games are so good (and the anonymity thing - high limit players can't just bumhunt Silicon Valley execs SNs anymore).

[tiltedstone]

i think pokerstars is going to lose money in new jersey but i think there real goal and the goal of new jersey is to bring in rest of world players in and dominate the market.new jersey has viewed its self as the leader in gambling in us and wants to hold back vegas thats why no deal is done with vegas and nj dosent really get benefit from merging with vegas

[Shizzmoney]

i think pokerstars is going to lose money in new jersey but i think there real goal and the goal of new jersey is to bring in rest of world players in and dominate the market.new jersey has viewed its self as the leader in gambling in us and wants to hold back vegas thats why no deal is done with vegas and nj dosent really get benefit from merging with vegas

Nevada is also pissed that NJ passed a sports betting bill. The state along with the DOJ and the 4 major sports leagues have lobbied towards a suit over the federal sports betting law PAPSA, which the NJ sports law circumvents, in the US Court of Appeals 3rd Circuit.

What's funny is that Nevada banning DFS may help NJ's bid for sports betting because of the fact that 4 major sports leagues own stakes in the DFS companies, which the NJ lawyers have argued is hypocritical and proves that the sports leagues are more concerned with preserving control over their stakes in the gambling business....rather than the "legality" or "moral hazard" of it as they have claimed in court.

NJ and NV have plenty of reasons to say, "fuck you" to each other when it comes to combining poker player pools.....which in the end only really hurts the poker consumer.

[lvpkr1009]

i think pokerstars is going to lose money in new jersey but i think there real goal and the goal of new jersey is to bring in rest of world players in and dominate the market.new jersey has viewed its self as the leader in gambling in us and wants to hold back vegas thats why no deal is done with vegas and nj dosent really get benefit from merging with vegas

I agree that NJ has no interest in combining player pools with NV. They would much rather combine with Pa and NY first to capture that whole area then focus on ROW and force NV to come crawling to them at which time they will give Nv the finger

[Sanlmar]

The legalized online poker market doesn't exist to cater to a few hundred players. If that's its ceiling, then it's doomed -- or at least until several large states get together and merge pools.

Unless the states merge pools, online poker legally in the US is fucked.

I wish there could be some way where countries could also agree to join pools of players, where an online intl regulation council could oversee the framework. I understand taxation is an issue, but how difficult is it to be some way Pokerstars can just administrate it per capita in the software? Poker in Europe has waned as well due to the "poker borders" laws.

Bovada thrives not just b/c it is offered to US players.......but also the fact that those US players have a place where they can play those in France, Canada, Brazil, etc. It is infinitely easier to deposit/reload on those sites abroad as supposed to here in the US, legally or otherwise. That's why the games are so good (and the anonymity thing - high limit players can't just bumhunt Silicon Valley execs SNs anymore).

I have forgotten how PokerStars handles rake & taxes in multiway international pots. Intuition tells me that opening NJ to players ROW would increase the tax revenue.

Win for NJ & win for PStars.

Seems so obvious to me. I just chuckled thinking about the junkets state governors often make to other countries under the guise of increasing foreign trade with their state.

If you wanted to really blue sky.... somehow this might develop into a tourism opportunity for the related hotel/casino and NJ. Lure some player from the south of France to NJ in the winter. Lol.

[OracleOmaha]

What's your definition of failure?

I live in New Jersey and I've been able to play online poker for the last two years. I consider it a big success.

That doesn't mean the player pool is huge or the game selection is unlimited like it was before Black Friday. For me, playing online poker should be a freedom for all Americans. We shouldn't have to move to another country with more freedom to play this game.

Having PokerStars back here is a big deal. Their software is so much better and so is their support. However, I would also like to see Borgata/Party and WSOP succeed along side PokerStars.

Hopefully down the road more states will legalize and the player pool will increase.

Regardless, I'll keep playing this great game and supporting the sites that serve the New Jersey market.

[Hockey Guy]

What's your definition of failure?

I live in New Jersey and I've been able to play online poker for the last two years. I consider it a big success.

That doesn't mean the player pool is huge or the game selection is unlimited like it was before Black Friday. For me, playing online poker should be a freedom for all Americans. We shouldn't have to move to another country with more freedom to play this game.

Having PokerStars back here is a big deal. Their software is so much better and so is their support. However, I would also like to see Borgata/Party and WSOP succeed along side PokerStars.

Hopefully down the road more states will legalize and the player pool will increase.

Regardless, I'll keep playing this great game and supporting the sites that serve the New Jersey market.

Before I begin, let me make something clear.

I want Pokerstars New Jersey to succeed. I want SOMETHING in legalized US online poker to become a success. So far, every legalized online poker site has been an embarrassing failure, and has fallen WAY short of expectations -- by a staggering margin (like a factor of 10, last I heard).

If legalized online poker doesn't translate to nice profits for the companies offering it, then these companies will stop fighting for it. In fact, not only will they stop fighting, they'll stop even bothering to offer it even if it becomes legal.

Right now, Bovada is absolutely dominating the US market, despite being an illegal room. They aren't just winning. They're crushing. True, they have an unfair advantage in an unrestricted player pool (aside from the states they self-prohibit), but the bottom line is that legalized online poker just hasn't worked.

Legalized online poker has existed in 3 states. Let's look at each:


Nevada

Ultimate Poker: CLOSED. Despite being first to market, this room was a huge failure, lost huge money, and is now gone.

WSOP.com Nevada: 150 average cash players online -- mostly microlimits. This is not what Caesars pictured when they spent considerable money to market and develop this site for the Nevada market. Despite being the ONLY viable legal site to play in Nevada, the numbers have stayed flat, and in fact have slowly declined over time. Even during WSOP, when you would expect a massive spike in players, it failed to even double its weak traffic during that time. To say this site is going nowhere is an understatement.

Real Gaming: Open, but no games ever run here. And I mean that. Literally zero games are usually running. This site should be put out to pasture immediately.



Delaware

The only running online poker site in this tiny state merged with WSOP.COM Nevada. So they now have combined player pools, which added just about nothing overall, since the Delaware legalized online poker scene never had players in the first place. At least you can play WSOP Nevada if you're in Delaware, which I guess is nice if that's where you live.



New Jersey

This is so far the biggest state (population-wise) to offer online poker. By comparison, Delaware has about 1 million people, Nevada has about 3 million people, and New Jersey has about 9 million.

Taking a look at the online poker offerings there:

Ultimate Poker: CLOSED. Yep, failed here, too. Ironically, they held off on improving their Nevada product (which was first to market, and heavily criticized) in favor of developing the New Jersey one. Oops.

WSOP.com New Jersey: Despite a merged player pool with 888.com New Jersey, they average an unexciting 170 cash players.

Borgata/Party Poker New Jersey: 110 average players. Prior to the launch of Pokerstars, this was the only other option in New Jersey aside from 888.



So that's a pretty sad reality. Delaware and Nevada combine for 4 million people, yet average 150 cash players online. New Jersey has 9 million people, yet averages a bit less than 300 cash players online. Makes you wonder if even a California online poker room will have much traffic, even with their 38 million population.

But back to Pokerstars.

It soft launched on March 18, with a player cap of 500. On March 21, we had a real launch. Now there is no limit of players, but people are not flocking there in droves.

Right now it's about 10pm ET as I write this (which should be near prime time), and there are 380 cash players online. That's pretty bad. Players should be excited and flooding the site, but instead the reaction has been a collective, statewide yawn. Are they doing better than WSOP and Party? Sure. Is this what Pokerstars was expecting when they fought so hard to be included in the New Jersey market? Absolutely not.

It's true that New Jersey also allows casino gambling online, whereas Nevada does not. In fact, the casino gaming is by far the bulk of these sites' revenue, while poker is producing very little, and in fact is a much bigger headache than the casino games. As you might know, poker players are very needy and vocal with their dissatisfaction, while online casino players tend to be quiet and docile (and it's much simpler to offer these games than poker, from a logistical standpoint).

The bottom line is that online poker in New Jersey has been a complete FAILURE, and only the casino portion has produced any kind of real revenue (though that was also far below projections).

I predict that Pokerstars will become the clear leader in New Jersey, but they will probably average 300-500 cash players online at best, and never really get beyond that.

This may be enough to keep them in business there once already set up, but trust me in that such numbers would be considered a failure by both industry analysts and Pokerstars executives.

If this does occur, it will be a strong blow to legalized online poker -- perhaps far more damaging than anything Sheldon Adelson could do. Pokerstars has been looked to as the savior of legalized online poker. Many have stated that legalized online poker has only failed due to poor marketing, poor customer service, and poor software. Put a highly competent company like Pokerstars in charge, and it will soar to new heights.

But will it? I sincerely doubt it. Here are the reasons legalized online poker hasn't worked, and why it won't work on a state-by-state level:


1) Player pools too small. Even 9 million people is far too small of a pool to get a meaningful player base. It's easy to forget that only a tiny percentage of the population wants to regularly play online poker, so we need a huge population pool if we want active games.

2) Too difficult to get started. The illegal rooms had a "play now, verify later" approach. That is, it was easy to sign up and deposit (even if your credit card didn't initially work), and you would go through the hassle of verifying your identity only after needing to cash out. The legalized rooms have to establish your identity first. Believe it or not, that's a big hurdle, and recreational players find it more trouble than it's worth. Remember, YOU might want to put a lot of effort to play, but recreational players do not.

3) Poor marketing, customer service, and promotions. Existing rooms have simply copied the long established formats and promotions, assuming they would translate well to the state legalized market. It hasn't. The wheel needs to be reinvented. Recreational players (or regular live players) need a reason to want to sign up and start playing -- such as no rake for the first month, or some other attractive promotion. Nothing like this has been tried yet.

4) Games aren't running regularly enough. It's time to hire props to get games running. If a recreational player signs up to play 1/2 NL and sees no games running, he closes the software and never opens it again.

5) Too difficult to deposit. Many credit card companies are still not onboard with the legalized gambling. Most recreational players want to use credit cards to play, NOT bank accounts. Add the credit card difficulty to the initial cumbersome signup process, and recreational players just don't want to deal with it.

6) Online poker is dying in the US, anyway. Even if online poker went back to the "old days" of pre-2011, there wouldn't be the enthusiasm for it that once existed. The 5-year downtime has allowed many to move on to other interests.

7) Lack of recreational players. You need them for a site to succeed. If it's mostly skilled regulars, the games won't run very much.

I don't see Pokerstars changing enough of the above to make things work.

They can do better marketing and customer service. They can modify the VIP program and promotions to attract more recreational players. But they can't change the mood of New Jersey residents, who simply don't feel like playing online poker.

Most players who had a real interest to play New Jersey online poker would be there already.

Pokerstars may introduce a better product to the market, but the market itself isn't going to grow with a better product. Instead, they will just suck traffic away from the other two rooms.

This isn't going to work.

Pokerstars is not going to rescue legalized online poker.

California, which is engaging in its own civil war among gaming entities involving legalizing online poker, is watching closely. And I guarantee you they're not going to like what they end up seeing.

Holy fuck dude, did you even read the OP?

Other than that, welcome to the forum.

[simpdog]

HG I don't believe Druff clarifies what success is.

I believe success for him is a huge player pool with fish donating money on the weekly.

Unfortunately due to Black Friday and the current economy I don't see that happening any time soon.

[chinamaniac]

HG I don't believe Druff clarifies what success is.

I believe success for him is a huge player pool with fish donating money on the weekly.

Unfortunately due to Black Friday and the current economy I don't see that happening any time soon.

Exactly my point. Them getting in the US market is a success. Player pool was never expected be huge. If people thought that then they are clueless.

Hence why druffs "prediction of fail" isn't going out on a limb or anything. I think what he thinks is going to happen is what most believe