The Small US Online Poker Pond has a Boss – 888 Poker
888 Holdings reported it has become the leader among the US sites for online poker in its latest trading update.
The same cannot be said about the poker operations of the company around the world. With yearly numbers dropping by 28% compared to 2018, global poker revenues from online operations diminished drastically.
According to the company, poker is a challenging world and they saw their second half of 2018’s year-over-year revenue going down by as much as 48%.
The market leader claim of 888 comes from both 888 and the WSOP – its US partner. Each one of the partners has online poker sites in New Jersey but 888 operates in Nevada and Delaware as well.
Step by step, 888 has established itself as the dominant player in the online poker industry in the US. Having presence in a number of states has had a very positive revenue impact for the poker operator.
Both New Jersey and Nevada poker WSOP players now share tables. Additionally, Delaware and New Jersey 888 players use the same pool. In contrast, the PartyPoker and PokerStars US operations are still limited to just New Jersey, although they are expected to start in the state of Pennsylvania soon too. This applies to WSOP and 888 as well.
According to the Division of Gaming Enforcement, PokerStars held the lead before the expansion. After the expansion became a fact, the shared liquidity had a strong impact and the 888/WSOP’s revenue went higher than that of PokerStars.
Expansion isn’t always the aim of 888, according to the operator. Online poker legality is not the only issue a company has to take into account when establishing presence in a state. If a given market (state) has too high regulatory costs and taxes, 888 many simply opt out of it.