New Jersey and Delaware Online Poker Continues to Struggle

Regulated online poker in Delaware continues to struggle and although there was a slight increase in revenues generated in August, it's still nothing to write home about, but in reality it was never going to be. The small population means that it will always be slim pickings at the tables and even though revenue was 10% up on July, it was in fact 20% down on the same month last year.

In all fairness Delaware has done well in maintaining any sort of online poker industry and the three Delaware racinos that offer an online poker option have done well to keep the flame alight, and the small increase on last month, is at least an increase.

Although Delaware's online poker network shares its player pool with that of WSOP.com in Nevada it's pretty clear that most of that traffic is actually from Nevada and getting new Delaware players to the tables is no easy task. The year on year decline in traffic and revenues is a worrying factor and should that continue then who knows what the future could hold for Delaware online poker.

The poker news from New Jersey is sadly much to the same effect, with a month on month increase taking a little of the heat from the fact that year on year the numbers are still down. August saw 5% more poker revenue than July in New Jersey with the Borgata and Party Poker joint venture leading the way, not far in front of WSOP and 888.com.

That small 5% increase is however the only positive as comparing the August 2015 numbers to those of the same month 2014 you'll get a 12% decline in revenues, however New Jersey casino numbers are holding steady. The situation is much the same across other regulated markets with European poker traffic and therefore revenue, in long term decline, making it increasingly obvious that shared markets and player liquidity are the only real solution to a long term sustainable online poker offering for smaller European markets.

Shared player pools even across the 3 states of the US that offer regulated poker, those of New Jersey, Delaware and Nevada are key to moving forward if online poker is to succeed, however it will still take one or two larger US states to come on board before things could really take off.