The early winner in New Jersey’s online poker room battle is bwin.party and its PartyPoker brand, which is teamed with BorgataPoker.com.
Figures from PokerScout, which tracks online play, say PartyPoker is grabbing about half of all the play on New Jersey poker sites. PartyPoker shares a player pool with its online partner, the Borgata Casino Hotel & Spa in Atlantic City, which operates BorgataPoker.com.
Caesars Entertainment’s WSOP.com is next with about 30 percent of play. Caesars own four Atlantic City casinos.
Online play began in New Jersey in November and sites must be affiliated with Atlantic City casinos. Only players physically in New Jersey can play.
According to PokerScout and based on a weekly average, Party Poker had around 240 concurrent players on its network at any time. That number has been growing.
Bwin.party Digital Entertainment, parent company of Party Poker, pointed to its performance in New Jersey in its pre-close trading update last week.
“In poker, revenues have grown since the introduction of our new poker client that is now available to approximately 65 percent of our customers, as well as from the launch into New Jersey where our network is the market leader,” read the statement.
The company said it has had also benefited from launching casino games—slots, table games, video poker etc.—at its New Jersey site.
PokerScout numbers show that WSOP.com claims 30% of the market with 150 real money players on average.
Overall, New Jersey averages 480 real money players on all its platforms at any given time. That’s better than twice the number Nevada online poker sites have been averaging.
