Chip leader: the curious rise of GGPoker and how it toppled PokerStars

Any person who was involved in the gaming industry in the middle of the last decade may remember there were concerns regarding growth projections for online poker. While three US states had regulated the vertical, and PokerStars had been bought by Amaya Gaming in 2014 for $4.9bn, there were fears Stars had a stranglehold on the market, despite its time away from the US after Black Friday in 2011.

In 2016, Stars acknowledged its market share stood at 71% at the end of Q2 and that its poker revenue was 10 times larger than that of its closest competitor. Full Tilt Poker had been swallowed up when the US Department of Justice agreed for it to be bought by Stars following Black Friday, and the likes of 888 and partypoker were struggling to compete. How could things get better?

The years since have brought a 180-degree turn however, and in 2023, who would have thought we could be heading towards a similar position but with a different operator that was yet to be born as a B2C brand? The subsequent rise of GGPoker has been unlike anything else many industry insiders have seen, with the operator soaring through the cash game traffic ranks with blistering speed, proving it was not just a fad after Covid-19 brought a heap of traffic to online poker operators.

According to analytics firm GameIntel, GGPoker averaged about 1,500 concurrent cash game players at the start of 2020, while Stars had three times those traffic levels. Things started to truly change that year though, and GGPoker made a significant breakthrough when it beat off competition from other big-name operators to host the international leg of the World Series of Poker (WSOP) Online for the first time when the pandemic made the regular live edition of the poker series impossible.

GGPoker took the number one position in cash game traffic in June 2021 when its average concurrent cash game seats passed 5,000. The significance of this cannot be understated, as this ended Stars’ 15-year reign at the top of the chart. A tussle then ensued between the two brands for the rest of that year, with the lead changing hands on multiple occasions.

Last year brought a different battle though, in that it wasn’t much of a battle at all. In August 2022, GGPoker’s average concurrent cash game traffic hit 6,839 players, giving it a 46% market share and making it larger than its five closest rivals combined. This year, traffic has reached over 8,000, and while the site is offering 600 tickets to this summer’s WSOP Main Event, making at least $6m in packages available, the cash game numbers could be boosted even further if that tournament traffic filters down.

What makes GGPoker such an interesting case is how it has brazenly gone about its business, with no shortage of controversy along the way and with question marks hanging over its head about who exactly is running the show and whether operations in grey markets is the standout reason for its success.

The beginning

GGPoker actually started out as a supplier when the GGPoker Network (GG being short for ‘Good Game’) launched in 2014, before the B2C GGPoker brand launched in 2017. The network is still in operation, with Asia-facing Natural8 among the sites using it.

That brings us to where GGPoker’s initial success was formed. The brand began to make inroads by cornering Asian markets, China in particular. While most forms of gambling are illegal in China, the ban on online poker was not strongly enforced by the government until 2018, by which time GGPoker was already making significant headway in the market. Some refer to this as the ‘Chinese Black Friday’, in which the government took a tougher stance against social games, banning any operators offering poker and the promotion of poker via social media channels. GGPoker has not made any public noise about prior operations in China, but it was clearly a key part of its ascent.

One industry source tells EGR Intel: “GGPoker’s growth stems from catering to Chinese/Asian players. When China made stronger efforts to shut down online poker, they expanded to more markets around the world. They are still really big in Asia though, and work to keep that market.”

Explaining further, Steve Ruddock, a US-based igaming analyst, says: “GGPoker operates in more markets than other online poker brands; specifically fewer geofenced markets. That allows it to create one large pool of players while other operators juggle many smaller pools. In poker, where liquidity is king, it is an extremely appealing product.”

Starting out as a software supplier also seems to be what provided GGPoker with the launchpad from which to grow. Building that software for other operators first has been a key differentiator, as several commenters place part of the brand’s rise down to the quality of the user-facing tech.

Paul Burke, managing director of NSUS Group, GGPoker’s parent company, explains: “Many of our competitors will say they are mobile-first but we have tried to develop software native to a phone – and we really mean that. We make the GGPoker experience snackable, letting you drop in and out quite quickly. You don’t have to sit at multiple 24-inch screens for five hours with us. We try to develop games that can be played for five or 10 minutes.”

Building a team

Much like how a Premier League football club draws attention to itself by splashing £100m on a star player, the poker world could not miss GGPoker’s signing of Daniel Negreanu to its team of ambassadors in 2019. The Canadian is one of the game’s most iconic players, sitting third on the all-time money list with total career live earnings of over $50m.

This is an area of the market which other leading operators have cut back on in recent times, but Negreanu has been joined by well-known names such as Jason Koon, Fedor Holz and Jeff Gross; the former two players are ranked sixth and 11th, respectively, on the all-time money list. The mixture of superior software and the sight of their peers’ move over to the brand is proving attractive to players, and it is undeniable this plays a part in influencing recreational poker players in turn.

Jeff Gross

Speaking to EGR Intel, Gross says: “I heard about the software and then Negreanu moved to the team, which was a big deal. A lot of poker sites have archaic software. You can’t just upgrade it. You have to rebuild from the ground up and a lot of sites have taken a lot of time to do that.”

Controversy

The problem that stemmed from such aggressive marketing was the impression GGPoker gave that no press was bad press, at least in the operator’s eyes. In July 2020, Negreanu made physical threats to a commenter on his live stream, leading to his Twitch account being suspended.

An even more damaging controversy abounded when social media influencer and recreational poker player Dan Bilzerian joined the GGPoker team in December 2020. This was never likely to portray GGPoker in a positive light, with Bilzerian’s playboy lifestyle and misogynistic behaviour being widely known. When poker player and then-GGPoker affiliate Vanessa Kade spoke out against the partnership, Bilzerian responded to her with an abusive message. More negative press was generated when GGPoker closed Kade’s affiliate account three months later.

Bilzerian confirmed in June last year his contract with GGPoker had ended, although the operator never made an official announcement. In his interview with EGR Intel for this article, Burke refused to comment on the brand’s partnership with the influencer.

An air of secrecy

While GGPoker has made plenty of noise down at the player level, this approach has not been reciprocated at boardroom level. There is very little public information about the people behind gambling operator NSUS. The group was founded in 2014, the same year the GGPoker Network launched. When quizzed, Burke declined to answer any questions about the owners, stating it is company policy that they are not mentioned publicly.

Paul Burke

Burke would also not comment on questions regarding NSUS’ operations before GGPoker, markets GGPoker operated in when it launched, the number of markets it operates in now or a list of markets where GGPoker holds a licence. GGPoker’s B2C business is not licensed in any US market, although the B2B business is licensed in Pennsylvania.

Its B2C arm is licensed in Great Britain, the Isle of Man, the Netherlands, Belgium, Ukraine and Czechia. All players on its dotcom skin were moved over to the Isle of Man licence when it was granted in 2021, including players in Canada, South and Central America and Asia. Within the GGPoker website, you can also visit versions for the European Union, Poland, Hungary, Finland and Brazil. Meanwhile, WSOP.ca operates as part of a joint venture with GGPoker in Ontario, Canada.

Ruddock says: “The secrecy comes down to their grey-market operations. If GGPoker eventually wants to be part of more regulated markets, regulators will have many questions about those grey-market operations.”

In what limited information is publicly available on the company, NSUS describes itself as employing more than 300 staff and having offices in Dublin, Malta, the Isle of Man, Manila and Seoul.

Another monopoly?

From a poker market standpoint, an area of concern with GGPoker’s success is whether the industry is heading back to the same position it found itself in 2016: being controlled by a monopoly. When factoring in that online poker regulation seems to have fallen some way down the priority list of regulators in recent years, particularly as far as US markets are concerned where sports betting is now in focus, this could possibly make for another bleak picture. Are we even back to square one?

Ruddock does not see that view. He says: “I don’t foresee a return to the post-Black Friday era where, following the collapse of Full Tilt, it was PokerStars and everyone else. I’d point out that era was short lived, as GVC [before it became Entain] was able to close the gap between partypoker and PokerStars quickly.

“Looking at the present landscape, the trend is towards legalisation, which means GGPoker will soon deal with the same market balkanisation as its publicly traded peers as more markets become regulated.”

The prospect of a monopoly is also something Burke wants to downplay. “Regardless of where we are now, competitors are there currently and more will come up because people continue to come up with great ideas,” he says. “Poker is a great industry, and it never stays still for that long.”

This is not the first time the online poker market has faced such a situation, and it certainly isn’t the first time it has been led by an operator that has gone about things in a somewhat unconventional manner. The onus is now on GGPoker’s competitors to respond, but it certainly won’t be easy.

Igaming analyst Ruddock adds: “Online poker is the forgotten vertical, particularly after the market consolidation of the last decade. With everything under one roof, the publicly traded gaming giants can’t justify investments in poker over the more lucrative casino and sports betting products. Creating a poker-first product is expensive and time consuming; not to mention the licensing challenges.

“An online poker startup is unlikely. Still, there are a handful of brands, GGPoker included, with established online poker products that will continue to innovate,” he concludes.