The online gambling industry in the United States is young to say the least. The state of New Jersey offers Atlantic City Internet casino as well as poker for real money wagers, and is the early leader in the 3 state USA virtual gambling market. One of the early knocks on the Atlantic City-based cyber gambling options is that they are a little “clunky”, and could use some “dressing up.” That is exactly what New Jersey’s state-based Atlantic City online poker rooms have been doing recently, and if the numbers from July are any indication, the effort is paying off.
Beginning back in April, just 5 months after New Jersey opened its virtual doors to legal, state-regulated Internet gambling, the top operators providing Garden State residents with casino and poker offerings via the Internet began to step up their games. Improvements have been made to the visual appeal of certain websites, and backdoor software complaints have been addressed as well. Several of the state licensed websites have aggressively begun promoting online poker and offering incentives, and a recent traffic boost says that those companies are definitely doing the right thing. While serious enthusiasm surrounding the reentry of PokerStars into the New Jersey marketplace in the near future might have accounted for a small jump in traffic, the month-to-month traffic increase still looks good.
New Jersey iPoker Traffic Flows Up In July
At the 3 Party / Borgata NJ poker sites, cash game average traffic for a 7 day time frame as of July 24 showed 152 players. That is up from the July 11 report of 139 cash game players found at the virtual tables, over a 7 day rolling average. That 10% increase is substantial and steady, and over at the WSOP Caesars New Jersey website, cash game poker traffic was up as well. Over the first 11 days of July, roughly 120 cash game players could be found at any given time at the WSOP virtual poker room. That too is a 7 day average report, which surged to 140 as of July 24. That is an impressive 16% increase in just two weeks. The New Jersey 888 virtual poker network posted a 15% jump over that same period of time, moving from 63 cash game players to 72. The jump at 888 might be due to the two successful summertime promotions at that website, Summer Slam! and Double Points, which are soon coming to a close.
2012 WSOP Main Event Champ Merson Joins WSOP
When a guy who has played an estimated 7 million hands of poker online jumps in the Internet poker picture in New Jersey, Atlantic City residents and those throughout the Garden State need to be wary. Especially when that gentleman has proven he knows how to play the game of poker, winning the 2012 World Series of Poker Main Event championship and $8.5 million as a first place prize. It has been rumored that 2012 WSOP champion Greg Merson was going to reach some type of agreement with the WSOP brand, and it appears he has done exactly that. Recently showing up at WSOP New Jersey site’s cash games and tournaments under the user name “GregMerson”, the poker millionaire would not discuss the terms of his affiliation agreement with WSOP. Online poker players in New Jersey, you have been warned of his presence, and now you can either run and hide, or test yourself against a proven pro.
Tropicana NJ Online Operations to Focus on Casino Gambling, Not Poker
The Atlantic City-based Tropicana Casino and resort has teamed up with GameSys to provide Internet casino gaming to New Jersey residents and visitors. Through both the Tropicana Casino and Virgin Casino websites, the Tropicana brand delivers Internet casino table games, video poker and slots. Recently, when asked whether they would be joining the New Jersey online poker industry, the company reaffirmed that it is focusing totally on its casino gaming platform at this time. Not ruling out Internet poker in the future, representatives for the company pointed out that the 2 Tropicana Internet casino websites ranked second in the state in the gross revenue in June.