Just over a week ago PokerStars New Jersey was first launched and the site is already dominating the traffic in New Jersey. 888Poker and WSOP.com probably already feel the effects of competing against the leader of the online poker industry.
On March 21, PokerStars took the lead after just one day over cash game traffic in New Jersey. But that is not all now PokersStars tops the charts for overall traffic. This is a huge accomplishment in just a short time.
The hype leading up to the launch might be one of the reasons for that early success. Prior to the Black Friday in 2011, PokerStars was a popular poker site in America and ever since many players have waited for its return.
PokerStars made an impact in New Jersey’s online poker market immediately after its launching. Since March 15 (a day before PokerStars’ soft-launch) there has been a 20% increase of the average cash game traffic in the Garden State.
It remains to be seen if PokerStars’ success will wear off and how New Jersey’s online poker industry will sustain or improve.
Competitors
Like any other business, competitors don’t just sit back and watch its customers choose its competitors. 888Poker, PartyPoker and WSOP NJ will probably respond to PokerStars’ arrival in some way.
On March 28, perhaps not coincidentally, 888Poker launched a more recreational player-friendly model. Both 888Poker and WSOP will probably implement more changes to keep player on their respective sites.
Amaya’s CEO Stepping Down
David Baazov, Amaya’s head honcho is taking a voluntary leave of absence. Recently, the CEO was charged by the Quebec regulatory arm AMF of using privileged information to influence Amaya’s market price securities.
Amaya, of course, owns Rational Group, a company that owns Full Tilt and PokerStars.
Until now, this has not have any impact on traffic of PokerStars, but this comes at an inopportune time, since PokerStars was just launched in the U.S. again and hopes to be available in other states in the future as well.
This scandal seem to have no impact from a player standpoint, the impact is mostly on the business side of the industry until now.
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