Marketers working for casinos and gaming operators in New Jersey, Delaware, and Nevada are gearing up for battle with what some industry sources call a seasonal lull in online and mobile gambling.
As it turns out, spring is not only bad for allergy suffers. It’s also really bad for online poker revenue.
“Online poker traffic in all three regulated US markets – New Jersey, Nevada and Delaware – is on a slow but steady decline driven by seasonal, industry and consumer factors,” Chris Grove of Online Poker Report observes.
“One of the primary forces at work in all three markets is the weather,” Grove points out.
As PokerScout similarly notes, “Spring has sprung, and unfortunately that means traffic is heading lower. Activity levels should decline slowly until early-mid April, at which point a steep descent begins.”
So what does this mean for marketers throughout the gaming industry? Without question, the need for clever, engaging, and aggressive marketing – with a strong focus on digital and mobile marketing – will be required to help curtail this seasonal downswing.
But the downswing may ultimately be worse than a “seasonal” phenomenon.
As mGamingWatch reported Wednesday, Morgan Stanley has slashed its estimate for the Internet gambling market to $3.5 billion by 2017. That’s down from a previous forecast of $5 billion.
“The firm cited worse-than-expected technical issues but said it is optimistic about the new industry’s long-term prospects,” the AP reports. “It forecast an $8 billion market by 2020, versus its initial $9.3 billion estimate.”
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