Morgan Stanley's Online Poker Downgrades May Still Be Too Optimistic Morgan Stanley's Online Poker Downgrades May Still Be Too Optimistic
Sarah Leo, Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivs License
Key Takeaways
  • Investment bank Morgan Stanley (MS) has released a research not on US Online Gaming which dramatically reduces its market forecasts.
  • The report estimates that California will introduce regulated online poker in 2015—although some industry commentators now think that this is optimistic—with Illinois, Pennsylvania and New York following in 2017.
  • One of the most interesting areas of the report from an online poker perspective is the remarkably “bullish” analysis of the impact that PokerStars will have on the US market.

Investment bank Morgan Stanley (MS) has released a research note on US Online Gaming which dramatically reduces its market forecasts for the second time this year.

However, one area in which it is extremely optimistic is the potential impact PokerStars’ entry into the market could have—in New Jersey MS estimates that PokerStars could help generate 60% year on year growth in 2015.

Under the assumption that all 50 states will introduce regulated online gaming (even though Utah passed legislation specifically outlawing the activity in 2012), MS has downgraded its maximum potential revenue forecast by almost 20%, from $13.3 billion to $10.7 billion. It downgraded its 2014 forecast for the New Jersey market from $203 million to $127 million and for 2015, from $338 million to $203 million for 2015.