[D ATA ]
KEY STATISTICS
H 2 O N S H O R E D ATA S E P T E M B E R
With just a couple of months to go H2 looks at how this year is set to compare to 2011, and the next three years
Last month H2 predicted that the value of the online poker market was set to rise slightly more than it did during the latter part of 2011. Its assessment of activity in September this year looks fairly promising with average player volumes up by 5.5% compared to a 1.7% fall in the same measure in the corresponding month last year. The 3.1% YoY rise in player volumes is the only positive for online poker player volumes since October 2010 when they were up 5% compared to October 2009. Following Black Friday and the closure of Full Tilt, average online poker player YoY declines peaked at just under 26% in September/October last year. With the re-launch of Full Tilt set for 6 November, H2 expects further YoY growth throughout Q4 of the year. But the current online poker picture is far from rosy everywhere. H2 notes that combined August and September online poker revenues for the dot.it market are down by more than 15% from the same months in 2011. It now looks set that Italian online poker gross win for Q3 this year will come in at between €94m and €97m, the lowest quarterly return since Q4 2009. This comes despite cash games only being introduced in July last year. The quarterly value of the market meanwhile peaked at €145m in Q4 last year with other dot.it remote product verticals performing strongly over the same period. For the time being average online poker real-money player volumes were sequentially ahead by 1.7% in August – H2 had predicted stability for the remainder of Q3 in last month’s data. Last year, average volumes fell by 0.1% during the same period. As at the end of September 2012, H2’s Internet Poker Volume Index (H2VI) stood at 3,009, almost 1.1% ahead of the level at the end of August. Going forward, H2 expects the H2VI to reach between 3,275 and 3,300 by the end of the year (note 31 December is a low day for online poker).
AVERAGE REAL MONEY PLAYER NUMBERS
Ring games and tournaments
124,000
92,300
95,600
SEP 12 SEP 11 SEP 10
318 239 249
D OT.CO M I N T ER N ET PO KER KPIs
CASH GAME PLAYERS BY STAKE
SEPTEMBER 2012 TOURNAMENT PLAYERS BY BUY-IN
GROSS GAMING YIELD: REAL MONEY INTERNET POKER (€M)
Ring games and tournaments, including bonuses, ring games/tournaments & all dot.com and dot.country sites)
HIGH MEDIUM
1.8% 8.2% 21.8%
LOW
6.1% 9.0%
MICRO
69.4%
15.2% 69.7%
€14.86
RING GAME AVERAGE POT SIZE
€2.74
AVERAGE TOURNAMENT BUY-IN
All sources: H2 Gambling Capital July 2012 – (NB. Constant Exchange Rates used – 1.4519 USD:€) – Updated each quarter
2012 EXPECTED EGAMING MARKET VALUE Ahead of the Q3 earning season and based on proprietary data to the end of September, H2 has recently published its latest egaming summary of regional and global numbers and forecasts. For the ?rst time, the core dataset includes onshore regulated activity in Nevada from the start of 2013 and selected other states starting 12 months later. The following represents a small part of what is available. We now expect the total gross win generated by egaming to grow by 8.8% in 2012 to €26.8m. This is expected to account for 8.9% of the total global gambling market (interactive and land-based) as opposed 8.6% in 2011 with its share now expected to reach more than 10% by 2015. Europe continues to represent by far the largest egaming market with 45% of the global total, but for the ?rst time from 2014, H2 is including more than one US state in its core forecasts and expects Asia to become the fastest growing egaming region. As ever, H2’s graph outlining the percentage of onshore egaming (within a regulated regime organised in the same market as the player – dot.country) raises as many questions as answers. The early development of the Asia pari mutual horserace betting monopolies in Hong Kong and Japan, coupled with their slowing growth in recent years, led to this measure bottoming out at around 32% in 2006 before the trend of onshore regulated schem es in Europe and now North America reversed the trend. Onshore-regulated egaming is set to account for 41.7% of the gross win of the sector generated this year and around 49.8% by 2015. This trend continues to be diluted by the relatively slow growth of Asian monopolies. Of the current year’s onshore activity, 62% is accounted for by sports betting, 16% by gaming and 22% by lotteries. Sports betting continues to be the largest single product vertical. Gaming (casino, poker, bingo, skill, etc) accounts for 46% and lottery for 9%. In 2012 it is expected that interactive gaming’s gross win will grow 7.4% to €12.3bn (casino up 12.5% to €6.2bn, poker down 2.9% to €3.1bn and bingo/other up 9% to €3.1bn) while interactive state lottery gross win will be up 18.3% to €2.4bn.
www.egmagazine..com
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