Data released by PokerScout.com points to something of a sluggish start in Nevada for WSOP.com, Caesars’ 888-backed online poker site that launched in the state last week.
The online World Series of Poker became the state’s second regulated online poker site alongside Ultimate Gaming's Ultimate Poker. Following a smooth launch, the new WSOP site did not perform as well as Ultimate Poker had done on its launch.
In the first three days, WSOP.com actually lost players before recovering to a modest peak of just 152 players online.
The launch of the Ultimate Gaming site saw player counts rise steadily to 268 in the corresponding period.
The apparent lethargy is, PokerScout suggests, due to the soft launch of WSOP.com, with comparatively little publicity. Once Caesars begins to wholeheartedly promote the new site to its customer base - which is considerably larger than that of Station Casinos, which backs the Ultimate Poker site - player numbers are likely to soar.
Despite the relatively inauspicious start, PokerScout reports that WSOP.com is already taking players away from Ultimate Poker with player counts at the established site down 14 per cent. This suggests that half the players at WSOP.com were drawn from the Ultimate Poker base.
The weekly report states that the overall global online poker market is down 10 per cent on the same period last year.
