Following Ultimate Poker Closure Nevada Stops Reporting Online Poker Revenue
Since February of 2014 the Nevada Gaming Control Board added online poker revenue to their monthly gaming revenue reports. Unfortunately, the NGCB will no longer be releasing monthly online poker revenue reports.
The reason online poker revenue will no longer be reported has to do with the number of active operators in the market. With Ultimate Poker shuttering its online poker room in Nevada – leaving only Real Gaming and WSOP.com left in the market – the Nevada online poker industry no longer meets the three operator threshold set by the NGCB to release revenue data.
Revenue reporting in 2013 and 2014
Nevada’s online poker industry launched on April 30, 2013, when Ultimate Poker became the first licensed online poker operator in the United States. But it would be nearly a year before Nevada released any revenue data on the nascent industry due to the superfluous regulation requiring three active operators in order for the state to make revenue numbers available to the public.
Even though Ultimate Poker’s closure dropped Nevada down to two operators, since this requirement had been met when Real Gaming joined Ultimate Poker and WSOP.com in February of 2014, the hope was the NGCB would do away with the three operator requirement, but no dice.
Once again we will be forced to go without revenue data from Nevada, and it could be for quite some time, as other operators are not exactly pushing to the front of line to launch an online poker room in Nevada, although as I’ll detail in a bit, there are several operators expected to launch in 2015.
It may be possible to guesstimate revenue in Nevada by comparing historical traffic data and revenue figures with current traffic data, but this will be quite unreliable as player-spend has been fluid and cannot be tracked.
Calculating revenue from unreported months
As noted above, this is the second time Nevada’s online poker revenue numbers have gone dark. The state kept revenue figures secret during the first 10 months of the industry, and somewhat discouragingly, when they did begin reporting online poker revenue they did not release the monthly take for those months, only offering up the total during that span.
However, once Nevada had three online operators and started releasing revenue data, the NGCB did post month-over-month gains/losses. This allowed analysts to use the current revenue along with the month-over-month changes to work backwards and determine the missing revenue figures.
However, it may now be impossible to determine the exact revenue figures from December 2013 and January 2014, since the NGCB will not be releasing the revenue figures from December 2014 and January 2015.
The best we can do is determine the two-month take from December 2013 and January 2014.
According to the NGCB, $7.7 million in revenue was generated between launch and January 31, 2014, which after accounting for the month-over-month changes left roughly $2.05 million in revenue unaccounted for in December 2013 and January 2014.
- May 2013: $425k
- June 2013: $642k
- July 2013: $861k
- August 2013: $683k
- September 2013: $761k
- October 2013: $1.253 Million
- November 2013: $942k
- December 2013 (estimated): $1.025 Million
- January 2014 (estimated): $1.025 Million
- February 2014: $824k
- March 2014: $926k
- April 2014: $792k
- May 2014: $862k
- June 2014: $1.004 Million
- July 2014: $985k
- August 2014: $742k
- September 2014: $693k
- October 2014: $665k
- November 2014: $641k
Who might assume the role of Operator #3?
So when will another operator launch in Nevada so the NGCB can start releasing data again?
The safe bet is the much ballyhooed launch of TI’s online poker room (which will be powered by 888 Holdings and part of the All American Poker Network with WSOP.com) or 888’s branded online poker room.
Another possibility is HDPoker, which planned to launch their full platform by the end of the year, with the potential for their mobile app to be unveiled by Q1 of 2015.