» How much rake does PokerStars make?
PokerStars is the largest poker site in the world. People often wonder how much rake they derive from their massive player base. As they are a privately-held company, no outsider can answer this question with 100% certainty. PokerStars is licensed and based on the Isle of Man, and registered in Costa Rica. They are purported to be 75% owned by the Isreal-based Scheinberg family, with employees owning the other 25%. I will attempt to piece together PokerStars' revenues (e.g. rake generated) from the evidence available.
One method to determine revenue numbers for PokerStars would involve taking into account average numbers of tables in play at each limit, the maximum rake per hand, the average number of hands per hour and develop a snapshot that way. This would be very involved and detailed, but changes by the day and hour plus complexities of table sizes and types of games would also affect the rake or revenue generated.
A second method might involve an analysis of total raking players with their average player lifetime value and incorporate the industry average of a 9 month playing career. But again the figures are estimates and the avgerage player lifetime value varies from region and country.
A third method would involve analyzing other large publicly-traded poker businesses like Party Poker, and extrapolate from their numbers based off the relative size of PokerStars.
Utilizing aspects of all three of the above methods, analyzing the limited publicly available information, and consulting sources that have attempted an analysis before, these are the numbers arrived at as of June 2010. PokerStars is grossing around $2 billion dollars a year in rake, and roughly $1 billion in net revenue. On a monthly basis that is about $83 million, or roughly $2.75 million a day in net revenue. This may be optimistic considering the global recessionary times, but it was based off trending evidence of PokerStars market share and expansion into new markets and live play.
The figures are based off a number of facts, assumptions, and comparisons within the poker industry:
- Over 30,000 avg. daily raking cash players, according to PokerListings and PokerScout, with over 45,000 cash players logged in at peak. Nearly 240,000 players are reported to be logged in. No firm numbers for tournament or SNG players.
- A couple larger poker rooms report that net profit is roughly half of the daily revenue.
- PokerStars has about 6 times the market share of PartyPoker and with Full Tilt claims over 60% of the online poker market. PokerStars is twice the size of Full Tilt.
- It is assumed, due to the greater number of higher stakes players on Stars, they average more rake per player than Party.
- When Stars was looking to go public in 2006, their earnings for that year were expected to be in the $200 million range. Their market share has grown roughly 5X since that time, in large part on capitalizing on remaining open to the US market after the UIGEA and pushing their market leading position with aggressive expansion and marketing.
- In the recently completed SCOOP series of major tournaments which reached over $60 million in prize money, PokerStars netted over $3 million alone.
According to Forbes, PokerStars has an estimated 38 million members, annual revenue of $1.4 billion and some $500 million in profits, according to Forbes.
Globally, online poker is a $4.8-billion annual business, according to H2 Gambling Capital. PokerStars enjoys 35% of that market.
Poker Curious PokerStars review
Some of the sources used for the above estimates:
PokerKingBlog:
http://www.pokerkingblog.com/2008/01/06/so-how-much-money-does-pokerstars-make-per-day/
http://www.poker-king.com/poker-king-articles.php?article=436
PokerListings: MarketPulse
PokerScout: Traffic numbers
TwoPlusTwo: http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/25/probability/pokerstars-rigged-447349/index6.html
PartyPoker Earnings Reports
OnlinePoker.net
