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We've already written a lot about the rise, plateau and the inevitable return back to earth of online poker. We'll be covering it a lot more in the coming days and weeks.
A feature earlier this week took a look the Southern Euro markets.
https://pokerindustrypro.com/news/article/211433-southern-european-online-poker-markets-decline-almost
A feature earlier this week took a look the Southern Euro markets.
https://pokerindustrypro.com/news/article/211433-southern-european-online-poker-markets-decline-almost
I'll pull out a few highlight facts with some updated numbers here.
The Euro and Italian markets have been a bellwether for wider markets: Spain, France and Italy were among the first to mandate strict stay at home orders. They are also some of the first to start relaxation.
The Euro and Italian markets have been a bellwether for wider markets: Spain, France and Italy were among the first to mandate strict stay at home orders. They are also some of the first to start relaxation.
This charts 1 year of traffic in both France/Spain/Portugal and Italian segregated markets, at a 100-base to show relative change. You can see they both track a very similar path - surging to ~275% into April, plateauing then declining.
Today, both markets are still up around 50% from the base pre-pandemic, but have given up vast majority of the growth seen in April.
We will see the same in other markets, without question, though the tail might be longer. This is the same chart, but shows EU (yellow) vs blue (dot-com) and red (US regulated).
Europe spiked higher, and the drop was more pronounced, but markets globally are on the way down
Europe spiked higher, and the drop was more pronounced, but markets globally are on the way down
Today, the dot-com market is still up around 70-80% of where it was 2.5 months ago, but it has already lost a lot of ground, and things will slide further.
The question remains, when the new baseline comes, whether it will be higher than what it was before.
The question remains, when the new baseline comes, whether it will be higher than what it was before.
To give one concrete example, PokerStars was on a base of ~6700 average concurrent cash game seats on March 12. It almost hit a high 15,000 in April, adding around 8000 extra seats filled.
Now it is down under 11000 so it has lost over half of what it gained, peak to trough.
Now it is down under 11000 so it has lost over half of what it gained, peak to trough.
Now is the time operators need to seriously be thinking about whether they have provided an enjoyable, safe experience to turn these new and reactivated customers into long-term, loyal poker players who will enjoy their service for months longer once we're in the "new normal"
Whatever that new normal looks like.
Because the difficulty all operators face is that they will need to make some *serious* cuts to guarantees in the back half of this summer. No more insane 9-figure prize pool series. Maybe no more big six- or seven-figure weeklies.
Because the difficulty all operators face is that they will need to make some *serious* cuts to guarantees in the back half of this summer. No more insane 9-figure prize pool series. Maybe no more big six- or seven-figure weeklies.
PokerStars (aka TSG aka Flutter) has identified that. It is part of the justification for going to shareholders to raise another $1 billion https://pokerindustrypro.com/news/article/211440-pokerstars-revenue-doubles-q2-flutter-raises-1-billion
When talking about poker and casino, it said the money will “provide the Group with the financial flexibility to invest further in the retention of these newly acquired/reactivated customers"
“Moreover, it will better position the Group to capitalise on any opportunity to acquire additional customers while less well-diversified competitors face on-going challenges.”
TSG said that poker and casino revenue had almost *doubled* in the first ~6 weeks of Q2.
TSG said that poker and casino revenue had almost *doubled* in the first ~6 weeks of Q2.
But it also said things are already starting to shift:
“As restrictions have begun to lift … year-on-year growth [of poker and gaming revenue] has started to moderate, and we anticipate that this trend will accelerate as more economies open up”
“As restrictions have begun to lift … year-on-year growth [of poker and gaming revenue] has started to moderate, and we anticipate that this trend will accelerate as more economies open up”
So while the market overall is falling, the picture is quite different between operators. More or this in a future article and Twitter thread, but here's a teaser - here's the top 4 dot-com operators. Want to guess who's black?
As always, data comes via independent industry monitor GameIntel with screenshots all from the live @pokerindpro Data platform, which all subscribers have unlimited access to.
If you're interested in more, reach out.
https://pokerindustrypro.com/learn-more/
If you're interested in more, reach out.
https://pokerindustrypro.com/learn-more/
