Сoronavirus epidemic caused online poker boom in Europe

Coronavirus 2020

The coronavirus epidemic has reached Europe, and many countries are now under the quarantine. Live poker series are being canceled, people spend much time at home – these and other factors caused the online poker boom.

The number of players participating in tournaments has markedly increased, and it’s seen with the naked eye. On top of that, almost all sporting events have been abolished, and some players even switched from betting to poker, as there are simply no events to bet on.

The other day, poker player Nick Jones tweeted figures that confirm the online poker boom. The following is a graph of the global cash game traffic in online poker:

Poker traffic 2020

The Italians became the leaders in terms of growth in traffic, as Italy is currently the most affected (by coronavirus) country in Europe. Here is the five-year dynamics graph of online poker for Italy:

Poker traffic in Europe 2020

The traffic has exceeded the mark of 2 000 players, and this hasn’t happened since 2017. Most of all, the traffic has grown at PokerStars – it’s doubled, and as for Italian poker operators, it increased by 50-100%.

Read also: Doyle Brunson: «The Corona can’t touch me, but I don’t want to infect my wife»

Total online poker traffic in Europe

Online poker 2020

This graph shows how the traffic has grown in Spain, France and Portugal. The traffic at PokerStars, PartyPoker and IPoker and GGPoker also grew by 10%.

Sunday Million collected the highest number of entries in a year

The popular Sunday Million at PokerStars was no exception and also showed a large number of registrations. The Sunday event collected 13 579 entries, making it the best indicator over the past 14 months.

Sunday Million 2020

The traffic will continue to grow taking into account the fact that the exact end date of the quarantine period in European countries is still unknown.

In the future, we can expect not only big records, but also big changes in online poker. Negreanu, for instance, believes that it is necessary to legalize online poker in the USA for the period of the coronavirus epidemic.

Obviously that poker rooms noticed such an activity of users’ and began to attract even more players with certain actions:

  • The MPN Network increased the event guaranties although it was going to close in May.
  • PartyPoker changed the PowerFest schedule and added three more weeks of additional events.
  • Unibet Poker introduced a new rebuy event with $10 000 guarantee – Nebulus.
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