The whole company seems to be much too focused on that Dragonfish thing. I mean, B2B is of course a good thing, but 888 should then probably think about closing their unrentable loss-making brands and either concentrate on penetrating other markets with their business to business stuff.

just my two cents…

No, that was actually the plot to the Superman movie with Richard Pryor.

Yes, I do know that the paid reports show game breakdowns. I have seen those reports. Unfortunately that is a paid service and PS seems to only write their weekly reports based on the more general total number of players.

Bill

Very good article.

It should be noted that PokerScout breaks down player data by stakes and game types. Perhaps you could get this information from them to test your hypothesis that while there may be more players, they are playing at lower stakes and therefore generating less revenue per player.

Several years ago I was of the opinion (like many others) that there would be consolidation. This has indeed happened with smaller sites merging or being swallowed up by larger sites/networks. But it is true that the two large US facing sites have experienced explosive growth, on the back of effective marketing, and , frankly, because they offer a superior product.

Economy of scale was always going to be a key factor, as there are huge advantages to having a large player pool.

I should be a guy that online rooms are raking a nice chunk of change from a year, and they are not because I have no trust in them. It is not really the bad beats, but it is the decision-making in the hands that end up in bad beats, decisions that I have never seen, not once, in nearly 20 years of live play. For example, I am playing an $11 (or so) 10 person NLHE sit and go on a certain site about a year or so ago. We are down to 3 handed, all about even in chips. Top 2 get paid. I raise from the small blind with AdQd. Other two call. Flop comes three diamonds, only one I really recall is the 9 of diamonds. Small blind goes all-in immediately. With the nuts, I of course go all-in as well, and the button calls. They both turn over Q-9. As you can see, 3 queens are out and 3 nines are out. Only way I can lose is if turn and river are the case Q and case 9. And, of course, that is exactly what happens. They chop, and I am out. I watch the heads up, first hand there is a quick all-in and a call, both with garbage, one wins, and the tourney is over. I sat there stunned. Now, there is a case, albeit a small one, for the small blind shoving with a pair. There is no one one the planet that would fold in my position, holding the nut flush after the flop. There is absolutely NO case for the 3rd player calling. None. 2 get paid, and since the other 2 are about even at the end of the hand you are either going to end up making second and getting paid or the 3rd player left is going to be so short you will still almost assuredly get paid. The only way the 3rd “player” calls is if he knows the Q and the 9 are coming.

When I was in law school, I remember we went over a famous white collar case where a criminal made a ton of money by stealing the fractions of a cent in computerized transactions. To me, this feels like the same thing. The online poker sites, with so many low dollar sit and gos, can throw two bots in on certain games, make them win, and keep the entire $100 in play. And they only have to do it in a fraction of the high number of sit and gos they run daily, and the money will add up real fast. Sure it is not as quick as ripping off the big cash games, but, like i said earlier, who would listen to me complain about being ripped of $11? No one, and I would be ridiculed for even making the complaint. Plus, you can keep a scam like this going on for a long time by only taking a small portions of the games and making it so that everyone wins from time to time, just enough to keep them coming back and to say if they complain, “Are you also complaining that the ones you won were fixed too?”

I am convinced that something like what I explained above is going on, which is why I won’t put money into an online site. I would rather lose my money the old fashioned way, by knowing what the guy racking up my chips looks like.

It’s a relatively small investment for them to be 100% ready to take on US traffic if legalization comes and a horrible mistake for them to wait until everything is certain and then try to scramble to get ready.

I can see a lot of the smaller networks consolodating and joining forces to take on the likes of Stars and Full Tilt otherwise we’ll have another load of Eurolinx type stories hitting the forums in the next year or so.

ON a slight tangent, do you reads anything into the Harrahs/888 deal? Could they UIGEA be about to be cracked?