The Market for Online Poker

16 Pages Posted: 26 Jan 2011 Last revised: 17 Aug 2014

See all articles by Ingo Fiedler

Ingo Fiedler

University of Hamburg - Institute of Commercial Law

Ann-Christin Wilcke

University of Hamburg - Institute of Commercial Law

Date Written: May 31, 2011

Abstract

Although online poker is a gold mine of data, until now nobody knows where the players and their money come from. It seems that the knowledge about the online poker market has not been able to keep up with the speed of its evolution in the past years. This paper is the first to shed light on this matter. We use data of 4,591,342 poker identities from the Online Poker Database of the University of Hamburg (OPD-UHH) collected over a six months period from 09/2009 to 03/2010. We find that the USA is still by far the biggest market with 1,428,823 active players and 650.5 million US$ net revenues in 2009. However, with regard to the number of internet users in a country Hungary is the biggest relative market: One out of 57 Hungarians with internet access plays online poker for real money. The two main drivers of the proportion of online poker players per internet users are GDP per capita and culture. Using the data from the OPD-UHH, future research will be able to break down the market also on a regional level within countries and to examine inter and intra country differences in the playing habits of online poker players.

Keywords: online, poker, market, gambling, data, habits

JEL Classification: L83, L11, H31, L89

Suggested Citation

Fiedler, Ingo and Wilcke, Ann-Christin, The Market for Online Poker (May 31, 2011). Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=1747646 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.1747646

Ingo Fiedler (Contact Author)

University of Hamburg - Institute of Commercial Law ( email )

Max-Brauer-Allee 60
Hamburg, 22765
Germany
+4940428386539 (Phone)
+4940428386443 (Fax)

HOME PAGE: http://www.wiso.uni-hamburg.de/institute/irdw

Ann-Christin Wilcke

University of Hamburg - Institute of Commercial Law ( email )

Max-Brauer-Allee 60
Hamburg, 22765
Germany

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