- Over the last 30 days, the online poker industry has gone through its most dramatic growth spurt in history.
- The unprecedented growth is due to the global coronavirus pandemic that has resulted in people around the globe in lockdown.
- From dot-com through to segregated markets, traffic has hit a ceiling; in some cases, it has started to slip down.
- The dot-com market hit this 25,000 mark in the first week of April, where it has since remained.
Over the last 30 days, the online poker industry has gone through its most dramatic growth spurt in history. Markets across the world have doubled in size.
The unprecedented growth is due to the global coronavirus pandemic that has resulted in people around the globe stuck at home in lockdown.
Exactly one month ago today, PRO first reported soaring cash game traffic. It now seems that traffic has finally reached its peak.
In the last seven days, it has become apparent that markets have plateaued. From the dot-com “international” market through to segregated markets across Europe and the United States, traffic has hit a ceiling; in some cases, it has started to slip down.
Even so, the peak is unprecedented in the modern online poker era. The dot-com market has seen cash game traffic leap from around 13,000 concurrent cash game seats on March 12 to a high of 25,000 on April 7, based on a seven-day moving average of daily concurrent cash game players, tracked by independent industry monitor GameIntel and available exclusively on the PRO Data platform.
Other markets have more than doubled. Indeed, Italy, Europe and the US regulated markets all seem to have settled on a figure of 240% growth.
With the different timings of nationwide lockdowns, the start of each growth spurt is similarly staggered across the globe. Some are just hitting their ceilings; others are already falling. In one case, traffic is still growing.
The data shows that each market enjoys a four-week period of growth before finding its peak. After a week’s plateau, it then starts to dip. As lockdown measures start to loosen, the decline can be expected to accelerate.
