The new WSOP.com website catering to poker players in New Jersey, Nevada and Delaware has been in operation for over a week and the response has been very good so far. The new platform has brought better rake, better traffic as well as some good ol’ hiccups that WSOP should be addressing as soon as possible.
As of April 30, the player pools of New Jersey, Nevada, and Delaware are now playing on the merged WSOP.com online poker room based in New Jersey. Poker players have waited for a long time to see the merging of these poker pools but now that it has taken place, was it worth the wait?
The new WSOP platform brings with it a number of positive improvements that have gone down well with the players. However, there are still several issues that the operator has to address. Here’s a breakdown of what’s good, what’s bad, and what needs improvement to make things better for the players.
Better Traffic
The ultimate goal of the merger was to increase overall poker traffic and this has worked well for WSOP.com. Player traffic has become so much better than the old separated platforms, with cash games and tournaments drawing a good number of concurrent players throughout the day.
The improved traffic is not just because of the tri-state shared poker agreement but also because poker players who had stopped playing at WSOP.com are returning to see what the new and revamped poker website has to offer.
As a result, cash game traffic has increased significantly when compared to the last few years. The number of people playing concurrently during prime time not only increased dramatically to cross the 300 mark but the prime time window has also lengthened and now runs roughly between 7 p.m. to 2 a.m. EST.
Better Tournaments
Tournaments have also been revamped and improved, although there’s still a lot of work to be done here. Currently, the two biggest daily events are the $5,000 and a $10,000 guaranteed events which have low buy-ins starting at $10 and $30. Although the tournament schedule is still not on par with some of the other poker rooms, the turnouts for these tournaments have been impressive and as a result the guarantees have been surpassed by 20 to 40 percent.
With this healthy tournament traffic, WSOP.com should think about being more aggressive and increasing their guarantees. Higher guarantees will help bring in more players and drive a higher turnout.
Time Differences
One of the biggest problems with WSOP.com tournaments lies in the three-hour time gap between the two major markets – New Jersey and Nevada. The weekly $100k tournament for example starts at 6 p.m. EST with a long 4.5-hour late registration period. With blinds creeping very slowly, tournaments tend to drag on until nearly 4 a.m. This can get pretty taxing since there are many online recreational poker players playing and cannot afford to spend so much time playing poker as they have to attend day jobs on a daily basis.  These players usually end up skipping these events as the time concerns hurt their daily working schedule.
New Loyalty Rewards
WSOP.com also overhauled its loyalty program and now has a much better rake schedule than before. The new rakeback offers as much as 32 percent rakeback for the annual Champions Club players with 20,000+ APP’s ($10,000+ in rake). Bronze players with 200-749 APP’s ($100-$324 in rake) can have as much as 8 percent rakeback, and Silver players with 750-1,499 APP’s ($325-$749 in rake) can redeem for 20 percent rakeback. The Elite players with 1,500-19,999 APP’s ($750-$9,999 in rake) are entitled to a generous 25 percent rakeback.
All rakeback can only be redeemed directly for cash. Currently, there is no option to purchase tournament tickets or other casino bonuses. The My Rewards section is also broken at the moment so players will have to call or email support to redeem their points.
Overall
Overall, the new experience is functional and smooth, with a few hiccups here and there that the WSOP.com should be able to iron out once all the approvals go through. Currently, the online poker operator is doing fairly well against partypoker, Borgata, and Pala Poker. However, when compared to PokerStars, there’s still a lot for WSOP.com to work on and improve.