In operation for more than a year now, the online poker market in Nevada hasn’t exactly been the game changer that many predicted a few years go. However, the last two months have resulted in a notable surge of revenue. June 2014 marked the Silver State’s highest yielding month since online poker was first introduced in late April of last year, and while the revenue did see a declination in July, it was still the second-highest yielding month in the industry’s nascent history.
Nevada’s online poker revenue saw a remarkably positive jump in June, topping the one-million mark for the first time with $1,037,000. That was a phenomenal 20.3% increase from the previous month’s tally of $862k. In July, the income wasn’t quite as impressive, but nevertheless ranked the second-highest earning month with a harvest of $958k, down 11% from July. If calculated on a daily basis, since July had one more day on the calendar, the drop off becomes a less substantial 7.62%.
An obvious contributor to the influx of online poker traffic over the last two months was the World Series of Poker. The 2014 WSOP began at the end of May – another period that saw a positive result from the previous month – and wrapped up with the convergence of the Main Event’s final table on July 15th. As such, experts are anticipating a significant decline in revenue by the time the August reports come in, but just how much remains to be seen.
Online poker revenues have waxed and waned throughout the year in the land-based gambling mecca. Nevada didn’t release any revenue reports for the industry for nearly a full year, finally releasing the results of February 2014 in which online poker generated $824k. March saw a considerable increase to $926k, but in April, online poker revenue dropped to its lowest documented point of $792k. May was another good month, when the revenue jumped back up 8.84% to 862k, followed by the most productive month of July with $1.037mm and the decrease to $958k in last month’s report.
Nevada does not break down the revenue by individual poker sites, of which there are currently three operating in the Silver State – Ultimate Poker, WSOP.com and Real Gaming. However, by following online poker traffic reports, it becomes obvious that WSOP.com was a major contributor the rise and fall of revenue over the last few months. And that, in turn, translates to the arrival of thousands of professional poker players from all over the world who participated in the WSOP this year.
Real Gaming, which launched early this year, remains in beta-testing mode and is considered a negligible contributor to the online poker market at this time. The traffic on Ultimate Poker has not changed over the last two months, whereas WSOP.com lost 7% of its average number of players from June to the end of July. The majority of the declination occurred just after the 15th of July, when the World Series of Poker came to its fruition.
Although August is expected to see another drop in revenue, the fall and winter months are generally the most active in the global online poker community. Add to that the fact that Nevada and Delaware will soon be sharing player pools on the APPN poker network, plus the impending launch of 888 Poker and Treasure Island online poker rooms in the Silver State, and Nevada’s market may be topping the million mark once more in the very near future.