Poker Industry PRO in 2018: 20 Special Features
Key Takeaways
  • Twenty picks from our favorite longer form articles from 2018.
  • Topics include major regulatory developments, exclusive interviews and in-depth financial and market analysis.

Alongside near 500 news articles and more than four dozen industry monitors, PRO also published close to 50 in-depth special features—almost one a week. These covered company and market analysis, deep dives into product launches, exclusive interviews with leading industry executives and longer-form analysis pieces into regulatory and industry developments.

From this library, we have curated twenty of our favorites.


Partypoker in 2018: Facts, Quotes and Exclusive Figures of a Growing Online Poker Product (March 2018)

Top line: “Net gaming revenue at partypoker reached €98.2 million in 2017, estimates exclusive to Poker Industry PRO show, returning the vertical to levels not observed since 2014.”

Key takeaways:

  • Net gaming revenue at partypoker will likely exceed that of 888’s for the first time in half a decade.
  • Poker is estimated to now be the largest product in the Games portfolio, with an estimated 44% share.
  • However, “Contribution” in the Games label declined 13% year-over-year to €77 million.

Read the article »


How Online Poker Will Look at GVC Following the Ladbrokes Acquisition (April 2018)

Top line: “Partypoker, the resurgent online poker room that has enjoyed significant focus and investment since its acquisition by GVC, is set to be transformed again, following the company’s acquisition of Ladbrokes, a giant in retail sportsbetting and no slouch in online gaming.”

Key takeaways:

  • With the Ladbrokes acquisition, the company is adding six active online poker rooms to its portfolio.
  • The company has invested heavily in its live tour, its online offering and the poker product itself in a bid to coax players away from its main competitors PokerStars and 888.
  • It remains to be seen what GVC plans to do with these new online poker brands.

Read the article »


PokerStars.IN Goes Live: Everything You Need to Know (April 2018)

Top line: “PokerStars.IN, The Star Group’s long-awaited localized entry into the Indian market, went live today. It followed an unannounced soft launch on Monday evening when it went came online at 19:30 PM IST. The official launch date was 10 AM on Tuesday.”

Key takeaways:

  • All players in India are required to switch to PokerStars.IN; accounts of Indian poker players on dot-com have been closed.
  • The site is shut to five Indian states due to local laws prohibiting online gambling.
  • Cash games offered under the Seat Me blind lobby system have buy-ins ranging from Rs 1/Rs 2 to as high as Rs 500/Rs 1000.
  • There are no other sit and gos beyond lottery-style Spin & Gos.

Read the article »


While Shared Liquidity Nears in New Jersey, Pennsylvania is the Linchpin to US Online Poker Success (April 2018)

Top line: “There is plenty of excitement swirling around the anticipated start date for the sharing of online poker player pool liquidity in New Jersey—and for good reason.”

Key takeaways:

  • The real game changer will be when Pennsylvania joins the pool.
  • The decision to allow multiple skins was seen by the PGCB as a way to “enable a very open and competitive market for internet gaming.”

Read the article »


A Complete Guide to WSOP 2018 Online Qualifiers (May 2018)

Top line: “In just three week’s time, the 49th annual World Series of Poker (WSOP), the world’s most prestigious live tournament series, will get underway.”

Key takeaways:

  • WSOP is running a fully slate of satellites in both Nevada and New Jersey.
  • The official sponsors 888 and Winamax are offering a variety of satellites.
  • WPN and various Indian poker rooms are offering unofficial packages.
  • Partypoker is shying away from Las Vegas packages this year, following a recently inked WSOP partnership.

Read the article »


Arrests, Blocks, and Closures: The Fallout from China’s Social Poker Crackdown (May 2018)

Top line: “Significant developments in China are set to cripple the Chinese poker community as a result of the government ruling to ban all social poker games and platforms promoting poker.”

Key takeaways:

  • An exposé revealed that social-poker apps offered on mobile devices were being used for real money gaming through a network of agents and private clubs.
  • China’s Ministry of Culture announced that poker will no longer be recognized as a competitive sport, and it imposed a pending ban on all mobile apps.
  • Meanwhile, Macau’s live poker scene has also suffered a setback as a result of the crackdown.

Read the article »


Online Operators To Pick Up the Tab for FOBT Max Bet Cut (May 2018)

Top line: “The UK Government has decided to drastically cut the maximum stake on fixed-odds betting terminals (FOBTs) from £100 to £2. To cover the cost of the anticipated drop in gaming duty generated through the machines, the government signaled that the tax on remote gaming will increase.”

Key takeaways:

  • The Remote Gambling Association (RGA) described the UK Government’s justification to increase RGD as unfair.
  • In addition to the FOBT stake reduction, the government also announced a series of other measures to protect online gamblers.

Read the article »


Two Weeks, $140 Million in Prizes: A Look at SCOOP, Powerfest and XL Inferno Performance (May 2018)

Top line: “The month of May has always been one of the biggest on the online poker yearly calendar, but this spring the top three poker rooms in the industry paid out a staggering amount of over $140 million in prize money at their respective tournament series.”

Key takeaways:

  • All three online operators finished on a high as they surpassed their main event guarantees with ease.
  • SCOOP awarded a little over $90 million.
  • Powerfest awarded more than $50 million.
  • XL Inferno paid out just over $3 million.

Read the article »


Where PokerStars’ “EPT Open” Concept Sits in its 2018 Live Strategy (June 2018)

Top line: “PokerStars will bring its European Poker Tour brand to Russian soil for the second time this year with a recently announced stop in September. For the very first time, the operator is introducing a new “Open” brand to accommodate a more modest schedule.”

Key takeaways:

  • “It’s great to see the EPT returning to Sochi but with a slight twist as the EPT Open Sochi.”
  • In terms of buy-in, the Sochi Open is much closer to the company’s new Festival events than a traditional EPT.
  • It it something of a surprise that two of the five EPT stops are in Sochi this year.

Read the article »


India Law Commission: Regulated Gambling Not Desirable, but Only Viable Option (July 2018)

Top line: “In an unprecedented move that may go down as the most important development for India’s online gambling operators to date, The Law Commission of India has recommended that the Indian government legalize betting and gambling activities, provided it is heavily regulated.”

Key takeaways:

  • The report states that by failing to enforce a complete ban on the illegal gambling, there has been a huge rise in black-money circulation and a further increase in illegal gambling activities.
  • “Since it is not possible to prevent these activities completely, effectively regulating them remains the only viable option.”
  • The law panel suggested several ways to regulate the betting and gambling market.

Read the article »


The Fight for Europe: How PokerStars, Winamax and partypoker are Competing Under European Shared Liquidity (July 2018)

Top line: “PokerStars was the first online poker room to take advantage of the historic signing that would allow operators to merge their player pools from four European countries. The worldwide leader in online poker combined its French and Spanish pool back in January.”

Key takeaways:

  • PokerStars has set the standard for guaranteed tournaments, offering by far the biggest weekly schedule.
  • Winamax and PokerStars offer the most competitive cash game rake, but partypoker has the lowest in MTTs.
  • Loyalty programs and game offerings differ greatly between operators.

Read the article »


How Winamax and PokerStars Are Building New Global Player Pools in Segregated Europe (July 2018)

Top line: “On July 10, Winamax became the third operator (joining PokerStars and partypoker) to offer cross-border shared liquidity in Southern Europe.”

Key takeaways:

  • Following in the footsteps of PokerStars, Winamax is also allowing players outside of Spain to register on its new Spanish client.
  • On July 10, Winamax became the third operator (joining PokerStars and partypoker) to offer cross-border shared liquidity in Southern Europe.
  • Under its French license, Winamax already accepts any players who have a verified European bank account, and they have proactively marketed outside of French borders.

Read the article »


From Passé to Prima: Behind the Scenes of MPN’s All New Online Poker Client (July 2018)

Top line: “When I first spoke to Alex Scott, Head of Product (Network Games) at Microgaming, about their upcoming online poker software Prima, he did not mince his words when describing the current state of MPN’s poker product.”

Key takeaways:

  • An in-depth comparative of MPN’s new poker product Prima vs the classic client.
  • A single codebase written in modern web technologies powers all desktop, mobile and web apps.
  • The first customers will soft-launch the new client this Thursday.

Read the article »


Industry in Shock as Italian Senate Approves Sweeping Gambling Advertising Ban (August 2018)

Top line: “By a vote of 155 in favor and 125 against, the Italian Senate has approved the “Dignity Decree” which, among other sweeping social changes, places a complete ban on all forms of gambling advertising.”

Key takeaways:

  • By a vote of 155 to 125 in favor, the Dignity Decree was approved by the Senate, the last remaining hurdle for it to be adopted into law.
  • “After tens of years, we have the first decree that was not written by economic potentates and lobbyists.”
  • Under the clause in Article 9 of a new law, the ban applies on all forms of advertising of gambling products in which a player can win money, directly or indirectly, across all media outlets and events.
  • A blanket ban is expected to severely impact the gambling industry.

Read the article »


European Shared Liquidity: Who’s Winning the Battle in Europe (August 2018)

Top line: “In early July, Winamax launched its online poker room in Spain. For the operator, it was a historic day: The first time in the company’s history that it offered online poker under a license issued by a country other than France. It also meant it could finally compete on an equal footing with the competition.”

Key takeaways:

  • PokerStars’ market share in the newly formed Spanish-French market remains the same.
  • The last few weeks have seen Winamax’s traffic soar, and it could soon overtake PokerStars Europe.
  • Smaller operators could struggle to compete with the big two.

Read the article »


How Over $170 Million Will be Paid Out Across Seven Online Poker Networks Next Month (August 2018)

Top line: “The fall season is a staple on the online poker calendar as several major operators host their flagship online tournament series around this time.”

Key takeaways:

  • WCOOP, Powerfest and UCOP will be their largest to date.
  • Galactic Series and Winamax Series go head-to-head in Europe.
  • WPN is also running its biggest BOSS series yet.

Read the article »


Innovation in Online Poker: An Interview with Severin Rasset, PokerStars’ Director of Poker Innovation and Operations (September 2018)

Top line: “This year is undoubtedly the year of product innovation. New games, software improvements and all-new platform launches, the level of investment this year is unprecedented.”

Key takeaways:

  • “We live in an era where tastes are rapidly changing. There is always something new, so we want to produce content for our players to make sure they can continue to enjoy what we have to offer them.”
  • “2018 is the first year we have created a stream of new games that occur on a regular basis. In that regard we are quite happy that we have completed four new variants of NLHE in one year, and we still have three months to go.”
  • “When it comes to the future in general with Power Up, the only thing I can share at this point is that we’re going to continue to innovate and try new things, and continue to listen to the players.”

Read the article »


With New Gambling Bill Finally Enacted, PokerStars, Playtech Prepare for Online Gaming Regulation in Switzerland (November 2018)

Top line: “Global online gaming giant The Stars Group, parent company of PokerStars, and igaming platform provider Playtech, operator of the iPoker network, have each revealed plans to partner with local Swiss casinos to operate under license in Switzerland in 2019.”

Key takeaways:

  • The new Money Gaming Act will allow existing licensed casinos to bring their games online, allowing poker, blackjack and roulette.
  • PokerStars says it is working to find a local partner to launch under license next year.
  • Playtech has partnered with Swiss Casino Group to help bring their brands online.
  • However, a question remains over a “good reputation” clause that threatens to curtain such efforts.

Read the article »


With its Acquisitions Complete, The Stars Group Crystallizes Global Sports Betting Strategy (November 2018)

Top line: “Following an intense year of acquisitions that transformed the original poker-first company into a true multi-vertical global gaming operator, the dust has finally settled. All the numbers are in the books, and the operator now needs to justify its spending spree.”

Key takeaways:

  • The Stars Group will tread carefully in the established UK and Australia markets, retaining the existing platforms and brands.
  • The operator will aggressively merge platforms in Italy as a test-bed for other markets.
  • It seeks a media partner in the US to utilize its brand and platform in an effort to replicate Sky Bet’s success in the UK.

Read the article »


Is Dutch Online Gambling Liberalization Ever Going to Happen? (December 2018)

Top line: “Online gambling regulation in the Netherlands will provide a huge opportunity for online gambling operators who will finally be able to market to Dutch customers, offer gaming on dot-NL domains, submit apps to mobile app stores, and offer customer support in the Dutch language.”

Key takeaways:

  • A coalition government promised an overhaul of its gambling regulation some six years ago, but the political process still drags on.
  • TSG is optimistic that it will pass in 2019.
  • Kindred Group: Late 2020 at the earliest, but further delays could happen.
  • Playtech: “I’ve been waiting five years for that to happen, I don’t see it happening in the foreseeable future.”

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