[D ATA ]
KEY STATISTICS
This month, in addition to March’s internet poker data, which demonstrates that Germany continues to be by far the most signi?cant egaming market in Europe despite regulatory uncertainty, we explore a number of scenarios and discuss how they might impact the market
exception of the Easter weekend we do not expect the index to be ahead of 4,000 again until at least October, even with the launch of fast poker by major sites.
EUROPEAN EGAMING GROWTH WILL TURN ON GERMANY
Four months after a new interstate treaty was supposed to be in place in Germany, there is still no certainty as to how the market will look. Schleswig-Holstein will offer licences for all products with a gross win tax of 20%, but a question mark still remains over the remaining 15 Länder who between them account for nearly 97% of the potential German interactive gambling market. When we last looked at Germany on these pages 11 months ago, a turnover tax for sportbetting of 16.67% (an application of land-based tax rate paid by the state lotteries on their Oddset product) had been proposed with only seven licences proposed. Land-based casinos were permitted to offer live games via the internet within their respective Länder. Following an objection by the EC, the tax on sportsbetting was reduced to 5% in December last year with the number of licences increased to 20. The EC seems satis?ed with this but is questioning the validity of excluding casino and poker from the legislation. Whether the Länder end up taking account of the EC’s opinion is unclear. H2 has modelled three scenarios for the German egaming market. In all cases it is assumed that SchleswigHolstein goes ahead with all products and a 20% gross win tax rate:
H 2 P O K E R D ATA
INTERNET POKER AT HIGHEST SINCE BLACK FRIDAY WITH FAST VERSIONS OF THE GAME EXPECTED TO DRIVE GROWTH
Real money internet poker average player numbers were ahead by 0.3% in March, and with the two additional days over February, total activity was ahead by 7.2%. Historically sequential average real money players’ growth has tended to be down in March with the fall being 0.8% last year and 2.0% in 2010. With the three additional days in both cases, total activity for the month was up by 9.8% and 8.5% respectively. Typically April sees a peak in real money player activity – the sequential average activity fell by 10.7% in 2011 and 7.4% in 2010. This year H2 expects the launch of PokerStars’ quick play Zoom Poker to enhance player activity. PokerStars’ real money traffic is down just over 3% month-on-month. With sites accounting for under 45% of total global real money activity once the onshore regulated markets are taken into account, this means H2 expects traffic to be sequentially down about 6% in April. With other major sites planning their own versions of fast poker, we expect real money poker traffic and revenues to be enhanced in the next 12 months. When Full Tilt originally launched Rush Poker in April 2010 it had a signi?cant impact on the site’s traffic. As at the end of March 2012, H2’s Internet Poker Volume Index (H2VI) was 3,807, 2.6% below the level at the end of February. This signals the start of the slower summer season and is 21.1%. As predicted last month, the index broke the 4,000 mark on ?ve days in March, reaching 4,297 on Saturday 24, the highest level since Black Friday. With the
AVERAGE REAL MONEY PLAYER NUMBERS
RING GAMES & TOURNAMENTS GGY (€m)
INTERNET POKER IN DEPTH
R I N G GA M ES & TOU R N A M EN TS GGY (€m)
Real money internet poker (including bonuses) (ring games and tournaments – including all dot.com and dot.country sites)
2010
2011
352
MI L L I O N
M ARCH 12
MA R C H 1 1
M A R C H 10
293
MI L L I O N
2012
104,000
24
130,700
137,900
247
MI LL ION
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