Unless you’re living under a rock, you know that last weekend was the Super Bowl between the New England Patriots and Seattle Seahawks. Packed with sharks dancing off-key, depressing insurance commercials about kids dying, and some of the strangest play calls you’ll ever see, this year’s Super Bowl had it all.

Did the Super Bowl stomp online poker traffic in the regulated US markets and abroad? After all, it was the most watched television program in American history. According to this week’s PokerScout Scouting Report, “Average player counts in New Jersey only fell a shade over 10%, which isn’t bad considering the Super Bowl was played during primetime hours for online poker.”

Last year, cash game player counts fell 20% in New Jersey on Super Bowl Sunday, PokerScout noted, although the game was played in the Garden State at MetLife Stadium. Meanwhile, cash game traffic in Delaware was unaffected by football’s big game this year.

The cash game discrepancy in the US was highest in Nevada, where PokerScout says the state’s sports books are to blame. As the site put it, “Nevada players were more likely to gravitate toward the Strip to place bets at their local sports book. It’s likely that they then stuck around to watch the action play out. A game is always more interesting when there’s money on the line and a crowd to cheer with.” Nevada’s cash game traffic was off more than 20%.

Outside of the US, traffic remained relatively constant despite the Super Bowl, with player counts only decreasing around 5%. PokerScout observed, “Last Sunday’s cash game traffic trends for the composite of 888 Poker, iPoker, Full Tilt, and PokerStars.it virtually mimic those of the Sunday prior. We do notice a slight discrepancy begin to reveal itself at around the time of kickoff, however.” The game began around 6:30pm Eastern Time.

Compare and contrast the Super Bowl to soccer’s World Cup, which runs once every four years. World Cup sank global traffic by 15% worldwide during the Germany/Portugal game last June, to use an example. Several networks reported losses up to 25% during the same game. Read more about World Cup’s impact on online poker traffic.

Why would World Cup be so much more popular than the Super Bowl? PokerScout rationalized, “American football is largely an American pastime and the NFL is solely comprised of teams hailing from the United States. Second, the Super Bowl was televised in Europe during the late-night hours, (approximately 11:00pm to 4:00am GMT), a time when most people are asleep in preparation for work on Monday morning.”

PokerScout’s Scouting Report is a daily newsletter for the online poker industry, with in-depth data and analysis of the market. More information can be found by clicking here or contacting [email protected].

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