What kind of impact does Covid-19 have with online poker?

The coronavirus pandemic has brought live poker to a grinding halt in casinos around the world. Online poker sites are already taking steps to capitalize on the coronavirus shutdown, and player liquidity is improving.

How Will the Coronavirus Shutdowns Impact Online Poker Sites?

I would assume the outbreak would mean more voluime for online poker platforms. Has there been a recent spike in participation in CC freerolls?

rj_montana said:

I would assume the outbreak would mean more voluime for online poker platforms. Has there been a recent spike in participation in CC freerolls?

Click to expand...

My guess is CC participation is about the same when it comes to the freerolls. There may have been a spike in new membership, though.

rj_montana said:

I would assume the outbreak would mean more voluime for online poker platforms. Has there been a recent spike in participation in CC freerolls?

Click to expand...

There has been a spike and though I am not sure the causes are clear, I can offer some input..

Since I joined the CC Free Roll Club, November 2019, I have kept a spread sheet detailing each of my cashes (so no claim this is a perfect daily average). However, it has made for some interesting reading. Just months ago the average weekday participation per my records in the CC FR on pokerstars waivered between a low of 145 to around 195. By December this grew to around 170 to 200, then shortly thereafter climbed solidly in the 200 to 210 range.

This became increasingly relevant to members when the Free Roll paid places were shrunk down from 45 to 36 places. Moderator Debi specified this was a unilateral decision by PokerStars and CC could provide no input/feedback until April, I believe. It came with a boost in starting chips to 3,000 which all agreed was a plus. However the downside was extending the time of the tourneys to conclude. My observation being the touneys bottlenecked prior to the bubble as members grasped it was more difficult to make it to the money - on average it's added at least 30 minutes of slow 'bubble play'.

Yesterday and the day before I believe the number of participants in the Free Roll pole vaulted to around 240. Any one or two days can be looked at as outliers but that is a staggering increase- but also a staggering increase within months regardless.


It would be interesting to see the analytics. New members? Older members returning to the Free Roll fold?

The casino sites reports of increased traffic on games and poker.
But the sports book are taking a big loss, no sports to bet on.

Increasing poker traffic is definitely good! But something I don’t really like the reason itself - because of which traffic is increasing !!!

More players will be able to play online for more hours , maybe some new ones will also join the existing players , some who haven't played at all it's time to try online grinding . Dealing with the boredom of isolation and restrictions due to this outbreak, have fun and profits

I just hope this experience will allow live casino owners to rethink their position on online poker and change it. A few casino owners "bribe" the politicians to not legalise online poker. So this is a very good lesson for them. Maybe they'll start thinking about allowing online poker rooms. Who knows, we'll see.

Volume is definitely rising. The most objective way to follow it is via this site:

https://www.pokerscout.com/

Another more subjective indicator is the number of players at the 2NL Zoom table on PokerStars. Last night it exceeded 1.000, which I have not seen on a regular basis since january 2019.

It should be noted, that there has always been some seasonality to online poker with more people playing, when its winter in the nothern hemisphere. The obvious explanation is, that during summer outdoor activities are more attractive.

In my opinion, this virus does not affect the game online poker, but very badly influenced the game of poker offline...

Shells said:

My guess is CC participation is about the same when it comes to the freerolls. There may have been a spike in new membership, though.

Click to expand...

Hahaha. I guess people have to find something to do if they aren´t supposed to go out anymore. Here in germany they restrict the opening of stores much to avoid the contamination risk...

I try to see what games have more players nowadays , on PokerStars and ACR , the games that I am playing , cause for the other I don't know . , I don't check them everyday . Zoom 2nl , 330 players ?? wtf man?? If they are over 100-120 is great . If they are 200 or sth more it's awesome . 330 ??? I am going to see tomorow Saturday and Sunday evening and night . And it's only 2nl . Cyclones have better players' pools overally and everyday imo . More fish , more players , better opportunities , especially for those who know how to play good or great poker . Some live events will be played online ? That's good news for online poker ..

Hi There

I Think that with more people at home there will be a significant increase


in online games

Therefore volume of players should increase yes

Rgds

games that used to be 500 or less are now double that and I will assume it will go higher. I hope the buy outs go higher as well.

I think for sure the flow of player will be greater.
The situation on the planet is very sad now because of the corona virus, and one should not take advantage of this situation under any circumstances. But it is a fact that online players will be able to increase their earnings during this period of seclusion of humanity.
May we come back stronger after this

It seems like more people are playing now with no sports to bet on as of this moment.

I just checked on PokerStars to see how many people were online - currently 135,000 - I'm not sure if that's normal or not, honestly.

KingSize said:

I think for sure the flow of player will be greater.
The situation on the planet is very sad now because of the corona virus, and one should not take advantage of this situation under any circumstances. But it is a fact that online players will be able to increase their earnings during this period of seclusion of humanity.
May we come back stronger after this

Click to expand...

well said. there are pros and cons. hopefully we all end up more wise and stronger

The player pool online at the site I play at has certainly increased. There are more soft players but the increase in bad beats is also evident because the "looser play every hand players" can show up with anything. It makes ranging your opponent more difficult.

covid-19

Hi. in argentina the government decree compulsory quarantine. I think that increasing the number of online players. and therefore deposit more money on online gaming sites,

Surely many live poker players will switch to the online game. I am curious what the reaction will be, those players who only played in the casino, regarding the new online poker experience. Will they lose significant amounts of money quickly? Will they be disappointed with the online game? ... or maybe they will do better online! Remains to be seen.

Volume increase on all sites.

A definite increase in volume every where (though I am not sure why/how this is also affecting private free rolls with limited membership- that's puzzling)

In a general sense there are now millions of punters with little to no sports betting activity to engage in. It has to be a boom time for online poker. This is nothing anyone planned for (and I'll presume one and all have concerns for the health and well being of the global population) so at least initially I do not see it as sites capitalizing on a crisis, as such.

That said the traffic increase, after years of a slow decline on online sites, is something the sites should be over the moon about. The opportunity for some serious brand re-building does not come along in the normal course of things.

So I trust they realize what a quirk of good fortune (in a trying time) this is and fully intend to keep the returning and new players happy in the longer term.

Maybe there is an increase right now, but if this goes on for months and recreational players lose their jobs , when the income goes down , also online poker will suffer.

I am talking about losing players , they can't afford it anymore.

I know for myself.. I will be playing more. I am off work for maybe two weeks right now, I brought home laptops and parts from all the schools I am responsible for. I will repair them at home, then bring them to the main office for the schools. Then they will be given to students when fixed.