PokerStars Cash Game Traffic Improves Since Plummeting in July

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Monday, August 8th, 2016 | Written by Shane Larson

In mid-July, cash game traffic at PokerStars was at a nearly nine year low, with the site’s ring games showing a 7-day average of just 11,500 players, a full 50 percent below levels of just 6 years ago. While cash game traffic has since risen to 13,500 players over the past few weeks, the dramatic decline in traffic still has many people speculating as to what is behind the continual contraction in traffic at the world’s leading poker site.

Here are some theories:

1. Effects of Regulation.

Over the last year, regulatory changes in a number of markets have made it either impossible or more difficult for PokerStars to operate abroad. The site was forced to shutter in both Portugal and Slovenia, and the Netherlands has prohibited marketing. Meanwhile, Greece’s new stricter tax laws are making online poker less appealing for players, while PokerStars has also pulled its operation from of a number of other lucrative markets, including Israel. The overall result of these and other regulations means that PokerStars has lost access to a combined population of more than 100 million potential players.

2. Slow Growth in the U.S.

After being granted a license to operate in New Jersey earlier this year, PokerStars has been investing time and money trying to promote iPoker legalization and regulation in other U.S. market. Nevertheless, states with larger populations like Pennsylvania and California have yet to take the necessary action needed to legalize online gambling, and it’s possible that PokerStars may have made a misstep by trying to court casinos and influence lawmakers in these states, rather than focusing on retaining players in places where it already operates.

3. Popularity of Spin & Go

Lottery-type ‘Spin & Go games‘ seem to be enticing players away from traditional cash games on PokerStars, and it has been doing so ever since it launched in September 2014. In that week alone, the liquidity at cash game tables decreased by 10 percent. Needless to say, the games have proven wildly popular at attracting new business, but they are not so successful in encouraging players to stay and try the other poker variants also on offer.

4. Changes to the Site

Some of PokerStars’ business decisions may be responsible for the decline in player interest. The site upset its most avid players by eliminating the top tier of their VIP program and dramatically reducing the amount of rake back paid out. In addition, their latest promotions have been rewarding luck rather than volume, providing little incentive for players to stay at the tables.

5. Overall Lack of Interest in the Game

Many experts have argued that online poker is just not as popular as it was during the big boom era of 2003 to 2006. While it’s not clear whether poker is completely on its way out or just returning to normal interest levels in the wake of being a fad-like gaming trend, there does seem to be evidence to suggest that there are just fewer people generally interested in taking to the virtual poker tables.

A Combination of Factors

When considering what’s behind the drop in cash game traffic at PokerStars, it’s likely best not to consider these theories in isolation. The real answer to why traffic has fallen is likely to be a combination of all of these factors, coming together like a perfect storm to negatively impact the available pool of players on PokerStars.

PokerStars Nudges NJ Market Lead

This week, PokerStars at least received a piece of positive news after the site managed to recapture the market lead that it enjoyed in New Jersey shortly after launching in March, 2016. Despite experts initially believing that the site would subsequently never relinquish its dominant position in the Garden State, by the following month PokerStars had slipped behind WSOP/888 in terms of traffic.

It seems that analyst had failed to take account of the gains gambling operators such as 888 and Party Borgata have made in the US while PokerStars was still waiting years for its iGaming application to be accepted. Going forward, it now seems likely that the state’s two biggest operators, 888 and PokerStars, will be in a constant dog fight to detemine who will top the state’s market each month, as the companies continue to offer more and more competitive promotions and bonuses in an attempt to wrestle market share from one another.