PokerStars helps New Jersey to record gaming win

 But rivals warn success could be short-lived with a risk of market cannibalisation

New Jersey has set a new record for online gaming win in the month of March, following the entrance of PokerStars into the market on March 21.

The egaming win for the month reached $15.5m, topping the previous record of $14.7m set in February, and marked the fifth straight month with a new high. The $15.5m figure also represents an 18% increase on the $13.2m posted in March last year.

The state’s online poker revenue was up to $2.5m, a year-on-year increase of 10%.  The jump brought to an end a long period of decline and stagnation for the online poker market.

According to the figures released by the New Jersey Division of Gaming Enforcement’s (DGE), PokerStars and its land-based partner Resorts, generated online poker revenue of $597,677 out of a total of $2.46m, giving it a 24% market share.

Borgata, partnered with bwin.party, was the market leader with a 42% share, while Caesars/Harrah’s retained 34%.

However, despite the initial surge in revenues, PokerStars’ rivals were not convinced that the Amaya-owned operator was a net positive force in the market.

Bill Rini, the head of online poker at Caesars Interactive Entertainment, told EGR that Caesars’ own figures suggested the PokerStars bump might be short-lived.

“New Jersey has been hoping [PokerStars] would massively increase the market size, and I don’t think that’s the case,” Rini said. “A lot of the uptick comes from a player who’s playing on our site going and playing over there because he wants to check out their site too.

“We’ll see what their long-term impact is, but it’s not been huge so far. The market hasn’t doubled or anything. Maybe they didn’t grow it, maybe they just cannibalised an existing market and moved numbers around.”