PokerTracker Discusses Online Poker Indictments

Friday, April 15th is being referred to as “Black Friday” by those in the poker industry, with the founders of the three largest online poker companies being indicted on Federal charges.  We sat down with Steven McLoughlin from PokerTracker to see what kind of impact the legal proceedings are having on the company.  By the way, you can get PokerTracker free through PokerSoftware.com.

PSW: How has the news impacted PokerTracker since the announcement was made on April 15th by the Department of Justice issuing charges against PokerStars, Full Tilt Poker, and Absolute Poker?

Steven McLoughlin:  It hasn’t impacted us much yet.  What has decreased, and rightfully so, would be our “Get it Free” program, which was when people could sign up at various poker sites and get PokerTracker3 for free in exchange for playing through the required amounts, which vary by site.

That has decreased, and it was expected to decrease, just like it has decreased in affiliates or rakeback companies or any other types of companies that are revenue-dependent on getting online poker rooms new traffic.  But as far as PokerTracker sales are concerned, they really haven’t been affected greatly.  I believe that there is a common misconception that the U.S., while it’s the largest market, is just not as large as everyone assumes.

PSW: Do you anticipate a tremendous drop-off in usage of PokerTracker based on players having trust issues with online poker?

Steven McLoughlin: I was reading on PokerScout that there was only a 23% loss of online poker traffic this past weekend.   I expected the middle to high 40s.  So, it’s not as much as we tend to think.  I’ve been hearing countless online poker rooms, their affiliate managers, and executive management teams saying, “This is a great opportunity for us” or, “We’re going to jump in there and take all of Stars’ and Tilt’s traffic,” but I don’t really see that happening.

For European or non-U.S. players, I don’t think that they’re viewing this as a trust issue as some of the online rooms might think.   For some people, yes, this will be a trust issue, or it might be a trust issue somewhere down the line.  But that hasn’t existed yet in my opinion.  A perfect example would be PokerStars’ numbers.  I mean they were still crushing this past weekend.

PSW:  Why do you think sites like PokerStars were still able to make their guarantees on their big tournaments?

Steven McLoughlin: It’s definitely a company that truly understands their market.  They have done a vast amount of research on who their players are.  Now we as players or we on the outside of the industry make a lot of assumptions about what the true marketplace might be, but the only company that can really grasp what the real numbers might be for their consumer base worldwide is a company as large as PokerStars.

They’ve done research in every single market and every single demographic, they know precisely what would happen if the U.S. disappeared, and their first weekend out, they met their guarantees perfectly.

PSW: There are still several sites that offer online poker to U.S. players.  Does PokerTracker service any of the U.S.-friendly sites?

Steven McLoughlin: We’re the only company that supports all of them.  PokerTracker currently supports Bodog, the Cake Poker Network, and the Merge Gaming Network (Carbon Poker, RPM Poker, GR88, Poker Nordica, etc.).  We are the only company that supports the Yatahay Poker Network (DoylesRoom, True Poker, etc.) with full HUD capability.  With that said, we also have the best support for the Merge Network.  We’ve worked really closely with Merge to make our relationship rock solid.

PSW: Do you see anything changing in the foreseeable future for PokerTracker or is it simply business as usual?

Steven McLoughlin:  It’s basically business as usual, although business is never really usual around here.  We’ve been in business now entering our 10th year and created terms like “PFR” and “VPIP.”  We were the first to market ourselves as the creators of the first commercially viable HUD.

From the beginning, our customers were mostly non-U.S. and from the beginning, we’ve seen our traffic rise on the same demographic paths that we’ve seen from the major sites this past weekend.  While the U.S. is the largest single area of all of our sales and of our “Get it Free” customers, it’s still just one slice of the pie.

In the big scheme of things, we’re still going to continue to support Full Tilt Poker and PokerStars and Absolute Poker/UB.com for the majority of our customers who are non-U.S.  But at the same time, we’re going to make sure that every component of PokerTracker3 is optimized for the sites that continue to service U.S. customers.

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