888 Holdings recently made big waves by purchasing bwin.party for $1.4 billion, outbidding Amaya Gaming to acquire the struggling company. The ramifications of this deal are many, with 888 likely making up a little ground on Amaya’s PokerStars in global online poker traffic. Another big benefit to 888 purchasing bwin.party is that they are now in position to dominate the U.S. online poker market, which we’ll discuss below.
888 takes over Third Largest Online Poker Pool in the US
888poker are already off to a fast start in America, given that they’re the only company that can operate in Delaware, New Jersey and Nevada. But now they gain an even bigger market share since they’ll be assuming bwin.party’s relationship with Atlantic City’s Borgata Hotel, Casino & Spa.
888 have managed to build what’s consistently the largest iPoker player pool in the U.S., with their WSOP/888 NJ network currently averaging 180 cash players an hour. The WSOP NV/DE Lottery network that they provide software for also does quite well, peaking at 190 hourly cash players during the 2015 World Series of Poker. Now they add the third-biggest online poker network in Party Borgata NJ, which consistently averages 120 hourly cash players.
Here’s a look at what 888 now controls or is partnered with traffic-wise:
WSOP/888 NJ – 180 players
WSOP NV/DE – 190 players (likely to drop with 2015 WSOP over)
Party Borgata NJ – 120 players
Total = 490 hourly cash players
This figure won’t dominate the market, but it would place 888’s American operation as the 15th-largest in the world, just behind Svenska Spel (500 players). And this is pretty impressive when you consider that they are working with just three U.S. states (approx. 12.8m people).
How will 888poker fare when PokerStars enters US?
For now, Amaya Gaming (PokerStars/Full Tilt) is still shut out of the U.S. online poker market. However, it’s believed that any time between this fall and early 2016, Amaya could finally get into the U.S. iPoker market, giving PokerStars access to the American players. And thus will begin the U.S. competition between 888 and PokerStars.
888 Holdings Chairman Brian Mattingley has previously said that he welcomes the competition from Stars, given that they seem to increase poker visibility wherever they go. But it will be interesting to see if they can trump 888 in the U.S., considering the big head start that the latter has right now. However, once other states begin legalizing online gaming and the American market opens up, then perhaps Amaya can really make this a competition.