In an otherwise declining market, the launch of shared liquidity by PokerStars in the US has propelled the New Jersey online poker market to post an annual increase for the second month in a row.
In February, PokerStars NJ — operating under the Resorts license — reported $878k in online poker revenue, according to the latest figures released by the New Jersey Division of Gaming Enforcement (DGE). It makes it the operator’s best February in six years.
In fact, on an annual basis, the operator grew by a staggering 75% compared to the same month a year ago and showed even better performance than in January, which showed a 46% increase.
Meanwhile, PokerStars NJ’s competitors saw declines. The combination of BetMGM Poker NJ, partypoker NJ, and Borgata NJ — which runs on the same player pool and under Borgata’s license — saw $704k in revenues, down 21% year-over-year.
WSOP NJ and 888poker NJ, which also operate on a shared network and report combined revenue under the Caesars license, had to settle for third place. The network produced $701k but fell 16% on an annual basis.
The licensed online poker rooms in NJ generated a combined $2.3 million in revenue. Despite declines by the Borgata and Caesars licensees, the whole market is actually up by 2.5% year-over-year.
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PokerStars US Shared Liquidity Propels NJ Online Poker Market’s Growth
All this growth can be attributed to PokerStars US launch of its multi-state online poker network.
On January 1, PokerStars joined its player pools in New Jersey with its player pool in Michigan. As the numbers illustrate, the implementation of shared liquidity had an immediate impact. Its New Jersey operations reported $1.1 million in revenues for January, up 76% from the previous month and 46% from the year-ago month.
February was the second month with PokerStars MI connected to PokerStars NJ’s player pool. Though the numbers are down on January (mainly because February is a short month), the market is up 75% on February a year ago. However, it should be noted that revenue figures in February 2022 were impacted by a rare service outage that lasted for multiple days in that month.
Nevertheless, the implementation of shared liquidity has propelled the market to grow for the first time in two years. Since March 2021, the market has seen a string of 22 consecutive months of annual declines. That changed after PokerStars NJ & PokerStars MI merged into a single network in January 2023.
If we exclude the brief spike in activity seen in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic, it is the best market performance in six years. The last time the market witnessed annual growth was back in February 2017.
Last month also marks the third-strongest February in New Jersey’s regulated online poker history.
- Play one hand & get $150 in bonus play funds
- Top-quality mobile app
- Best online MTT schedule
PokerStars NJ Leads the Market and is Likely to Continue
Thanks to the cross-border liquidity sharing between New Jersey and Michigan, PokerStars led the market for the second consecutive month. It is only the fourth time in some five years it has taken the top spot in the Garden State — a market dominated mainly by WSOP/888 network.
With February revenues of $878k, PokerStars NJ now commands nearly 40% of the overall market share. Its competitors BetMGM/partypoker/Borgata under a single network and WSOP/888 hold 30.8% and 30.7% shares, respectively.
PokerStars’ dominance in New Jersey is expected to continue for the foreseeable future unless BetMGM and WSOP follow PokerStars’ suit and combine their New Jersey player pool with that of Michigan. WSOP already runs a cross-border liquidity network sharing New Jersey, Nevada, & Delaware pools. Adding WSOP MI to its existing shared liquidity network would increase the competition and make NJ online poker market a tough battleground. It would need to update its out-of-date NJ-NV software first, though.
However, neither network has indicated any plans to combine their NJ & MI player pools.
But all eyes are set on PokerStars’ ongoing SCOOP series in the regulated USA online poker markets. The operator has scheduled a $3 million USASCOOP for the MI-NJ shared network and a $2 million PASCOOP for Pennsylvania online poker players.
There’s still plenty of time to get in on the SCOOP action. Sign up and start playing or head to our in-depth review to learn more about PokerStars’ real money tournaments.
