The WSOP entered into the online poker market in Nevada on the 19th of September 2013. The biggest competition the WSOP came from Ultimate Gaming, which was the first online poker website to launch in April 2013. The WSOP used its partnerships, brand image and financial backing to quickly overtake Ultimate Gaming in online poker traffic and by November 2013 was ahead of all competition.
Since then, the WSOP website has experienced modest results building a player database of over 100,000 accounts. During the last 12 months, the WSOP has hosted more than 14,500 tournaments in Nevada and deal over 15 million hands of real money poker. The online poker website of the WSOP leverages traffic and advertising from the numerous WSOP live events that are held on a regular basis.
During June 2014, the WSOP website received a spike in online poker traffic as this was the period when the World Series of Poker was being held in Nevada. The tournament helped the online poker website to attract 1,235 players for an event that allowed 25 finalists a seat at the two 2014 WSOP main events.
The WSOP is celebrating its first anniversary in Nevada by offering a number of bonuses such as discounted tournament ticket sales, reload bonuses and an on-going anniversary tournament series. Other bonuses include double Action Player Points (APPs) during the coming week and a higher guarantee for this week’s Super Sunday tournament.
The WSOP also signed Greg Merson who was the 2012 WSOP Player of the Year after winning the World Series of Poker Main Event was the websites first brand ambassador. Bill Rini who is head of online poker for WSOP.com said that the WSOP will continue to be
bullish on the long-term prospects of the business.
While Nevada has issued online poker licenses for other establishments, the ability to break through the market and capture a large market share has proven to be a tougher challenge that what most online gambling companies initially predicted. New regulations governing online poker in the U.S such as geo-location services, payment processing and software glitches have not really favored the online poker market.
Even though online poker is now regulated in the state of Nevada, there continues to remain a huge black market for online poker. These illegal online poker websites continue to be a source for many online poker players who prefer to play with no restrictions and maximize their profits instead of compromising and playing the legal way.
