The spring and summer months have always been slow periods for the global internet poker economy, but some regions—particularly New Jersey—have clearly struggling more than others. For the month of June 2015, the NJ online poker market suffered the lowest yield since the state introduced regulation in 2013.

Last month, the Division of Gaming Enforcement (DGE) reported that NJ online poker operators harvested just $1.83 million. That figure represents a 46.8% drop compared to the state’s all-time high of $3.44 million generated in January 2014.

Diminishing player traffic—and consequently, revenue—is expected around this time of year. The iPoker industry endures a seasonal drop in activity all over the world. But the NJ online poker market has more reason for concern when comparing last month’s revenue to that of a year ago. June 2015 bears a 10% decrease compared to the same month’s figures in 2014.

In fact, aside from the relatively steady months of February and March, New Jersey has witnessed a perpetual month over month decline in internet poker revenue.

On the opposite end of the spectrum, regulators in the Garden State are enjoying a continuous boost from the online casino market. That division nearly struck 10-figures in June, reaping $9.83 million; a staggering 83.38% more than NJ online poker sites.

NJ Online Poker Market’s Leaders

There is some confusion among which network actually leads the NJ online poker market. If we go by revenue, the Party Borgata Network is at the forefront. Based on cash game traffic numbers from tracking website PokerScout, however, it’s WSOP/888 that leads the pack.

There are only two internet poker networks operating four sites in the Garden State. Party Borgata operates nj.Partypoker.com and Borgatapoker.com, while Caesars Interactive’s WSOP.com and us.888Poker.com share they’re players on WSOP/888.

When comparing NJ online poker revenue, Party Borgata is on top with 51.8% of the market share, while WSOP/888 follows right behind with 48.2%. In terms of traffic however, WSOP/888 appears to have a significant lead of 170 average cash game players, compared to just 110 on Party Borgata. One would have to surmise that Party Borgata is drawing more tournament traffic, and/or higher stakes players to the virtual felt.

NJ Online Poker / Casino Markets Combined

When balancing the books for both NJ online poker and casino markets in June, Party/Borgata remained on top by claiming 29.6% of the Garden State’s overall iGaming market share. Caesar’s Interactive came in second with 22.6%. Tropicana and Golden Nugget, which operate online casinos only, trailed close behind with 21.95% and 21.64% respectively. Another casino-only operator, Resorts’ grade was negligible, managing to grasp just 3.43%.

New Jersey Still Awaiting PokerStars Entry

At this point, there’s only one thing that can truly turn the NJ online poker market around, and that’s the eventual introduction of PokerStars. The world’s largest internet poker site, owned by Amaya Gaming, is still waiting for a ruling from state regulators on whether a license will be granted, and according to Amaya CEO David Baazov, it could happen as early as Fall 2015.

PokerStars entry should have an immense impact on the Garden State, raising awareness ten-fold and giving existing operators significant reason to become more competitive with their promotions and tournament offerings.

It’s also worth noting that Amaya Gaming is currently in negotiations to acquire bwin.party and its many interactive gaming assets, including its operations in New Jersey.

Update: Confirmed this morning, July 17, 2015, 888 Holdings has won the bid for bwin.party, agreeing to a $1.4 billion buyout of the company and all of its assets.

Calling all online poker players in the Garden State: The New Jersey Championship of Online Poker (NJCOP II) has returned! The 34-event series will kick off on Thursday, April 16 and runs through Sunday, April 26, guaranteeing $1,000,000 throughout.

NJCOP II will feature a wide array of online poker variations with buy-ins to accommodate all levels of play. Everything from NL Holdem and PL Omaha, to 7 Card Stud, Bounty Tournaments and Deepstacks are on the schedule, with buy-ins ranging from $50 to $1,000.

The New Jersey Championship of Online Poker is opening with a Players Choice event on April 16 at 6:00pm ET. Registration costs $100 and a minimum $20k is guaranteed. Then at 7:00pm is Event #2, $150 PLO 6 Max with $10k up for grabs.

The NJCOP II continues from there with 2 events on the schedule every weekday and 4 events each Saturday. On Sundays, the roster increases to 7 tournaments, including a $5 Mega Satellite to the NJCOP II Main Event on April 19 and 26 at 3:30pm. Each satellite offers rebuys and guarantees 25 seats to the Main Event.

The Second edition of the New Jersey Championship of Online Poker will play out Event #30 – the Main Event – on Sunday, April 26 at 5:00pm. The direct buy-in is $200, and the winners are promised a slice of the NJCOP II’s largest single-event prize pool, $150,000.

Also of interest will be two high roller events, #11 and #32, likewise to be played out on their respective Sundays. The first features a $1,000 buy-in and a standard NLHE structure with $50,000 GTD. The second also incurs a $1,000 buy-in, but is listed as “NLHE Slow” and guarantees $75,000.

Click here to see the Full Schedule of 2015 New Jersey Championship of Online Poker.

NJCOP II Notice for Mac & Mobile Players

A special notice has been posted on Borgata Poker and PartyPoker NJ in regards to users logging in to the online poker site from a Mac or mobile device. Note that certain poker variants cannot be played on Mac and/or mobile. Please see the chart below for NJCOP II events that can and cannot be played on specific operating systems and devices.

About the New Jersey Championship of Online Poker

The New Jersey Championship of Online Poker is hosted by the Party Borgata Network, meaning that members of Borgata Poker and PartyPoker NJ will have dual access to all NJCOP II events. All legal-age poker players located in the state of New Jersey are welcome to participate. A verified account with either online poker room is required.

In its inaugural debut last year, the New Jersey Championship of Online Poker featured just 15 events, and guaranteed $600,000. The significant growth of the NJCOP II schedule, with more than twice as many events and the overall guarantee nearly doubled, goes to show just how well the 15 month old iGmaing market is developing in the Garden State.

The online poker and casino gambling revenue report for February 2015 has been released by the New Jersey Division of Gaming Enforcement. While it’s clear that internet poker is on an alarming decline compared to last year’s results, it’s also worth noting that, despite the cash game traffic results, the Party Borgata poker network is still the leader in New Jersey.

When WSOP.com and 888Poker teamed up in January by pooling a portion of their player bases across certain cash games and tournaments, it appeared that the newly formed WSOP / 888 network was primed to take over the top spot in New Jersey’s online poker market.

According to current statistics from traffic tracking website PokerScout, WSOP/888 is averaging 200 players at the cash tables over a 7 day period, while the Party Borgata poker network is averaging only 150. That information would lead many to believe that WSOP / 888 would easily overtake the market as the #1 gross revenue generator in the Garden State. But the latest revenue reports indicate otherwise.

The NJ DGE’s revenue report shows that PartyPoker and Borgata Poker (collectively the Party Borgata Network) reaped $1,103,501 from interactive peer-to-peer gaming (i.e. online poker rake and tournaments fees). Caesars Interactive Entertainment, which operates as the license holder for WSOP.com and 888Poker, generated $942,154.

Together, New Jersey’s online poker market produced $2,045,655, with Party Borgata owning 53.94% of the market share. WSOP / 888 made up for the remaining 46.06%. In terms of cash game traffic, though, the numbers look quite different, with WSOP / 888 leading at 57.14% of the market share, and the Party Borgata poker network trailing with 42.86%.

How Party Borgata Poker Network retains #1 Rank

There are only two reasons why Party Borgata would remain on top, despite having lower cash game traffic than its sole network rival in New Jersey. The most likely cause would be a stronger interest from the online poker community in Party Borgata’s tournament schedule.

The network has a larger selection of well-structured tournaments that offer higher guaranteed prize pools than WSOP / 888, and the majority of them are networked across both PartyPoker and Borgata Poker. WSOP and 888 only chose to network a small number of their largest weekly guarantees, which are still collectively lower than those presented by Party Borgata. The highest Sunday GTD at WSOP / 888 generally fluctuates between $25k and $35k, while Party Borgata offers a minimum Sunday $50k GTD, often increased to $100k GTD.

The only other factor that could cause such a seemingly opposing result in New Jersey’s online poker leadership is the value of the players taking part at the cash tables. If PartyPoker and Borgata Poker are drawing more high volume, high stakes players than WSOP / 888, it would reason that the network would collect more from cash game rake than their competitor, despite having the lower traffic numbers.

Revenue Reports Good & Bad News for New Jersey

When comparing February’s online poker revenue to January 2015, the numbers don’t look good at first. Jan 2015 brought in $2,299,426 ($1,283,746 or 55.83% from Party Borgata, $1,015,680 or 44.17% from WSOP / 888). In Feb 2015, the total was down 11% to $2,045,655.

However, if we negate the fact that February had 3 less days than January, calculating the daily average instead, the results look more like this: $74,175 per day in January, $73,059 per day in February. That equates to a mere 1.5% differential, and should be a lot easier for New Jersey regulators to swallow.

Where the largest discrepancy lies is the comparison between February 2015 and February 2014. Last year at this time, the Garden State’s online poker revenue totaled $3,109,203. Overall, the internet poker market has seen a disturbing decline of 28.3% in year-over-year results.

On a positive note, online casino revenue in New Jersey is still running strong, accounting for approximately 4x more than online poker. When both online poker and casino revenues are combined, the DGE reported a total internet gaming win of $10.4 million in February 2015, up 0.9% from $10.3 million in February 2014.

New Jersey’s online gambling market has been active for 15 months now, and after consistent reports of sluggish growth, it seems the industry’s revenue generation is finally staying on a northbound track. For the second month in a row, the interactive gaming win is up, including a substantial boost in online poker revenue.

For the month of January 2015, the New Jersey Division of Gaming Enforcement (DGE) reported a total internet gaming win of $11,567,337. That figure translates to an 8% increase, up from $10,736,118 in December’s report. Of that, $9,267,911 came from the state’s online casino operators, while the other $2,299,426 was derived from peer-to-peer gaming (i.e. online poker operations).

Clearly, casino style gambling is more popular – and more profitable – than online poker games, but this month’s unwritten award for rate of growth goes to the latter. Internet casino win rose 6.38%, while online poker revenue grew 10.45% month over month.

Party Borgata Network leads in Online Poker Revenue

There are currently four online poker operators pilfering their virtual wares in New Jersey – Party Poker NJ, Borgata Poker, 888Poker and WSOP NJ. Party Poker and Borgata Poker are licensed to the Borgata Atlantic City, sharing their player bases on the aptly named Party Borgata Network. 888Poker and WSOP.com, although both licensed under Caesars Interactive and using the same 888-branded software, didn’t not begin sharing their player bases until last month.

With that in mind, only Borgata (Party/Borgata Poker) and Caesars (WSOP/888 Poker) are reporting online poker revenue. In that regard, Party Borgata still maintains a solid lead, representing $1,283,746 (55.83%) of the total peer-to-peer yield for January. WSOP/888 are slowly catching up though with a total of $1,015,680 on the month (up from $949,432 in December 2014).

WSOP NJ / 888Poker lead New Jersey in Cash Game Traffic

In terms of cash game traffic, however, WSOP.com and 888Poker are now cornering the New Jersey market. After partially combining their player bases in mid-January, the Caesar-licensed operators finally edged out the Party Borgata Network as the most popular poker site in New Jersey. According to PokerScout, Party Borgata currently averages 150 cash game players, while WSOP/888 have climbed to 220 players on a 7-day average.

Helping to keep Party Borgata on top in the online poker revenue counts was last month’s second running of the Garden State Super Series (GSSS II). The online poker series ran from January 11^th through the 25^th of the month, drawing in a plethora of players to participate in the 69-event, $1 million guaranteed series.

Remarkably, WSOP.com and 888Poker held no events of that caliber last month, yet still managed to see a small increase in online poker revenue. As such, it will be interesting to see just how well Party Poker NJ and Borgata Poker perform in February compared to WSOP and 888Poker when no major online poker events are on the table.

The biggest guaranteed events for New Jersey online poker players in February are the Sunday Majors. Again, Party Borgata has the better offering with a $100k GTD at 5:00pm every Sunday, but WSOP and 888 are working their way up, having increased the Big Sunday from $35k to $50k for last weekend’s Feb 15^th rendition. Whether the prize will remain the same this coming Sunday is yet to be seen.

For the last 13 months, the Party Borgata network has led New Jersey’s online poker market in cash game traffic. WSOP NJ was able to creep up behind its rival a few times, but it wasn’t until this last weekend that the Caesars-owned poker room finally took top billing. Not only that; 888’s All American Poker Network (AAPN NJ) skipped ahead into the 2^nd spot.

After maintaining such a strong lead since The Garden State’s iGaming market first went live in November, 2013, the last place Party Borgata expected to be was on bottom. But after New Jersey’s online poker industry was reduced to just three competitors late last year, that’s exactly where the former leader ended up over the weekend.

As for why Party Poker and Party Borgata (collectively Party Borgata) have fallen behind, there are a few factors that can be taken into account. First and foremost, on Monday, January 12, 2015, New Jersey’s WSOP.com and 888Poker initiated a partial merger of their player bases. Secondly, Party Borgata’s most avid members haven’t been especially happy with the software. We’ll discuss more on those issues in a moment, but first…

Current Online Poker Traffic Stats

If we review the Garden State’s online poker cash game traffic over the last nine days, we see a significant change in 7-day averages. We’ll start with Monday, January 12, 2015—the day player pooling first began between WSOP NJ and 888Poker—then proceed to the following Friday, four days later, and finally today’s current stats, another four days down the road.

Note that the following results are derived from the traffic tracking statistics of PokerScout.

WSOP/888 Player Pooling a Huge Success

WSOP NJ and 888Poker NJ are both powered by 888 software, but unlike Party Poker and Borgata Poker (both powered by bwin.party), the two chose not to pool their players from the start. Last week, all low-limit cash game tables were pooled between WSOP and 888. A series of GTD tournaments were also shared, including $130k worth of each sites largest daily and weekly majors.

Negative Feedback for Party Borgata

For the last few months, ever since a major update to the software in September 2014, an MFC Error has been plaguing the online poker network. It mostly affects grinders and players who have multiple tables and/or programs open, particularly when tournament announcements pop up, causing the online poker room to crash. Players generally report other errors within the software upon relaunch, such as the inability to see hole cards.

A fix to the problem was promised on January 5, but no update occurred. Again, a fix was expected during the “week commencing 12th Jan”, as per Party_Rep ‘Colette’ on the TwoPlusTwo forums. But again, no update occurred. Instead, on Friday players were told that previous updates in December were meant to fix the MFC errors—(obviously, that didn’t work)—and that technicians are still working to find “the root cause”.

Players were once more asked to contact customer support with their account information and complete details of any further errors. Members have been justifiably outraged, including many who experienced repeated errors during the site’s GSSS II online poker series. All in all, while traffic is currently on par with last week’s early-week results, once the GSSS II is completed, there could be a lot more New Jersey players making the switch to WSOP NJ and/or 888Poker.