GPWA Times Magazine - Issue 17 - September 2011

By Aaron Todd S ince April 15, 2011, the on- line gambling landscape has changed dramatically. Millions of Americans, who previously played on- line poker and gambled at Internet casi- nos and sportsbooks, saw their favorite brands leave the U.S. market. The exit of major brands like PokerStars and Bodog came either as a result of direct pressure applied in indictments from the U.S. Department of Justice or out of self-preservation as sites that previ- ously served the U.S. market decided it was no longer worth the risk. PokerStars, Full Tilt Poker and Absolute Poker/UB.com left the U.S. market shortly after its founders were named in the April 15 “Black Friday” in- dictments. Bonne Chance casinos (e.g., Cocoa Casino, Paradise 8 and This Is Vegas) blocked Americans from sign- ing up for new accounts. Sportsbook. com and others soon followed. Some sites, however, reaped the bene- fits of the lost American market. While PokerStars and Full Tilt Poker saw their numbers shrink in the three weeks fol- lowing Black Friday by 25 and 50 per- cent respectively, the Merge Poker Network saw a 77 percent increase in player liquidity and the Cake Poker Network saw a 28 percent increase in liquidity. Compared to the relatively small starting points of the smaller sites, the increases were significant, but the vast majority of Americans who lost their favorite sites on Black Friday have yet to reappear on sites continuing to serve U.S. markets. Several sites that continued to serve the U.S. took measures to ensure that their domains could not be seized. Sportsbook.com, for instance, changed its home page to Sportsbook.ag. Bodog.com initially changed to Bodog.eu, but has since announced that because it has received a U.K. license, the Bodog Brand will shift out of the U.S. market completely by the end of the year. The Morris Mohawk Gaming Group, which had been licensing the Bodog Brand, will continue to serve U.S. players with a new site. “Other than a name change it should be business as usual for U.S. punters,” reads a release on CalvinAyre.com. Bodog wasn’t the only site to change its domain name. Sites taking simi- lar measures include: doylesroom. ag, betus.com.pa, and bmaker.ag (from bookmaker.com). Others, such as the Casino Coins online ca- sino brands, simply could not sur- vive and closed completely. PokerStars, meanwhile, offered players a 50 percent reload bonus, the largest such bonus in its 10-year history, in an effort to quell fears about the site’s li- quidity and to keep the games running. Full Tilt Poker simply melted down af- ter the Black Friday indictments, and had its license revoked by the Alderney Gambling Control Commission at the end of June. (For more on the mess at Full Tilt, see Vin Narayanan’s story on page 62.) Competing online poker sites have reaped the rewards of Full Tilt’s de- mise. PokerScout.com’s Dan Stewart says that only 10 percent of Americans lost in the market after Black Friday have resurfaced at new sites. But 60 percent of the customers Full Tilt had been serving after it shut down its U.S. operations have turned up elsewhere. PokerStars has reaped the greatest re- wards, netting nearly 3,000more play- ers than it had prior to the shutdown, while PartyPoker has jumped by more than 1,600 players, or 46 percent. In an effort to capitalize on Full Tilt’s problems, PartyPoker introduced a pro- motion offering players rake-free tour- naments in the month of July. And they weren’t the only roomattempting to take advantage of the turmoil at Full Tilt. The iPoker Network doubled its first-deposit bonus to $2,000, and allowed players to clear that bonus twice as fast. Perhaps the most remarkable situation in this shifting marketplace, however, is that business at PokerStars stands nearly in the same place it did a year ago, despite losing access to the U.S. market. As of August 1, year-over-year traffic at the world’s largest online poker room was down just 4 percent, while worldwide, traffic has decreased 24 percent (excluding France and Italy) in the last year. “[PokerStars] had seen a fair amount of gain, year-over-year, before Black Friday hit,” said Stewart. “And then they captured a good number of Full Tilt players, so they are nearly back to even. A lot of people assumed they were a little more dependent on the U.S. than they really were. They had been really successful in broadening their player base to be a majority of non-U.S. players.” “ “The vast majority of Americans who lost their favorite sites on Black Friday have yet to reappear on sites continuing to serve U.S. markets.” ” Black Friday: bad for some, better for others 60 Black Friday: bad for some, better for others