US still top online poker market despite UIGEA, research shows

America remains by far the biggest online poker market despite operators’ increased focus on Europe after UIGEA, new research has confirmed.

Data from Poker Players Research (PPR), a market research company specialising in the poker industry, shows that despite the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act (UIGEA) online gambling ban passed in 2006, America still has 10 million real money online poker players – more than five times the number of the next largest market, the UK, which has 1.9 million.

The third largest market was Germany, which has 1.6 million real money players, ahead of France with 1.3 million. Even the mature Scandinavian market for online poker had just 1.4 million real money players.

Staying in the US market had enabled sites like PokerStars and Full Tilt to take more than half the online poker market share, at the expense of operators who pulled out of the US upon passage of the UIGEA in late 2006. These include PartyGaming, which settled with the US authorities for US$105m in April for its activities prior to UIGEA.

But while PartyGaming recently took the calculated risk that settlement with the US Department of Justice may enable it to re-enter in the US market if efforts to regulate online gambling in America succeed, operators such as 888 have so far shown little sign of moving towards settlement. As reported this month on EGRmagazine.com, 888 chief executive Gigi Levy said he believed that the US would restrict egaming licences to US companies even if it does regulate.

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