Less than a year ago, the online gambling industry was convinced that the growth of online poker would continue to skyrocket. More and more players were jumping into the mix, trying their hand against competitors all over the globe.
Then the Department Of Justice had a hissy fit and declared a prohibition on online poker, suspecting that every executive at an online poker site was a possible Jimmy Hoffa. The DOJ began taking sites down one by one and the incomes of those sites started drying up.
Revenues have dropped for a number of online poker companies for the first half of the year, as we reported with Bwin a few weeks back. But recent data from Pokerscout.com, a cash game traffic watchdog site, shows that things have started to improve for some of these sites in recent weeks. Whether or not these figures show a real trend or a complete fluke remains to be seen.
A number of sites are getting hammered as the DOJ continues its tirade:
- Merge Gaming Network: Merge is the latest of a series of poker sites to take a hit on revenues. Their revenues actually fell about 10 percent week-on-week. Rumor has it that the Justice Department may be targeting the company’s payment processors, which seems to have spooked some players into not wanting to put too much money into the site.
- Bwin.party: Bwin.party is another poker site experiencing the frustrations caused by the U.S. Justice Department. Their revenues dropped 11 percent since last year. Fortunately, things are starting to get a little better for Bwin.party as the site started taking players who used to play for Full Tilt Poker.
- Full Tilt Poker: Probably the biggest casualty of them all. The investigation into FTP threatens to destroy the entire site. If courts decide Full Tilt really was a Ponzi scheme, the company’s future is kaput.
- Betfair. Betfair is another online gambling site that just wishes it could catch a break. From May 31 to July 31, revenues from poker and its other games fell 7 percent. The only thing keeping the company from complete turmoil is that its existing sports gamblers have been betting more.
These sites are still struggling to regain their footing after Black Friday. Will they start improving as the data from Pokerscout.com suggests? Many sites like Pokerstars stand to make a lot if Full Tilt goes under. Revenues for sites in future months may be more mixed, but things sure are starting to get interesting!
Do you think online poker sites are going to see higher revenues in coming months? Share your comments below.