The New Jersey online poker industry is surging these days with more and more players going online due to the coronavirus issue. That is welcome news, as the internet poker scene had been stagnating for several years.
The online poker rake in March was just over $3.6 million, which is a 90% increase from March 2019. The April revenue stream should be up more than 100% year-on-year with the pandemic closing the doors of the land-based Atlantic City casinos last month. In 2019 online poker revenue was down 2.1% from 2018.
The boom is most evident in New Jersey’s online poker tournaments, where prize money guarantees are being exceeded on a regular basis. PokerStars is one of the operators that has seen success as of late with the ongoing New Jersey Spring Championship of Online Poker (NJ SCOOP).
Comprised of 96 events in total, the series began on April 11 and will end on April 28. PokerStars New Jersey had guarantees of $1.2 million in total for the NJ SCOOP, but that figure will likely have doubled by the time all is said and done.
There are still more than 40 events to be played in the NJ SCOOP, while PokerStars is offering bankroll boosts and increased deposit bonuses as well. Check out the PokerStars New Jersey website to get the full schedule of events remaining in the series.
Most of the payouts for the NJ SCOOP tournaments are four-figure sums, but there have been some five-figure payouts too. The series has high and low buy-ins for each event, thus catering to both the grinders and the whales.
The final table of the $1,000 high roller event on Tuesday, April 21 featured some familiar faces. These were the top six earners:
1. AllinScott8 — $19,650
2. Mike “MartinChatwn” Lavenburg — $12,118
3. Ryan “ISlowRollYou” Hohner — $7,473
4. Brian “Wsopboy1997” Sherrier — $4,608
5. Yoursistersa$$ — $2,841
6. David “coles93” Coleman — $2,478
The sixth-place finisher, David Coleman, has won more than $2.8 million playing poker online. He is the third-ranked player in New Jersey and, as of April 21, had cashed in 10 of the tournaments in the series. Coleman won the April 19 $350 buy-in no-limit hold’em tournament, where there was a huge turnout of 153 players with 90 re-entries. The top six for that tournament were:
1. David “coles93” Coleman — $15,330
2. Shankar “burgersssss” Pillai — $11,331
3. Don “mrblonde2020” Himpele — $8,375
4. David “dak1616” Kotler — $6,190
5. Mike “MartinChatwn” Lavenburg — $4,575
6. keith1983217 — $3,381