PokerStars‘ new fast-fold poker game Zoom Poker has become quite popular to a lot of players and a bane to the side of its competitors.
According to Bwin.party’s trading update earlier this week, business has been down partly because Zoom Poker, which launched at the beginning of the second quarter, has become so successful in the short time that it has been live. Not to stomp on a horse when its down, but in addition to the success of Zoom Poker, Bwin.party also managed to point the finger at the predictability of Euro 2012 as part of what has been a slow first year for the company.
In its trading update, Bwin.party touched on the “continued pressures” in poker and the “lower than expected gross win margin in sports betting” as the two main culprits in dousing what turned out to be solid performances in their casino and bingo offerings. “In poker, as for many other operators, the competitive challenges experienced in April continued in May and June, exacerbated by the Euro 2012 Championship and the launch of Zoom Poker on PokerStars that went live at the beginning of the second quarter,” the trading update said.
Despite the negative effects Stars’ Zoom Poker has done to its business, Bwin.party remains confident that things will be rosier in due course, pointing out that the company’s launch of sports, poker, casino, and bingo offerings in Spain has shown encouraging returns with a top three market position that falls in line with their market strategy. The company also expects to see their sports gross win margin improve in due time, as well as make leaps in their poker offerings with the impending launch of its very own version of the fast-fold poker craze that seems to have taken a bite of just about every relevant online poker room this side of the solar system.
It’s been no secret that ever since Full Tilt Poker launched Rush Poker in 2010, the fast-fold poker fever has caused a widespread race among online poker sites to come up with their own versions. Since Zoom Poker launched earlier this year – and long after Rush Poker had been canned – we’ve seen a whole load of them come up like blooming daffodils in the spring time, including Fast, Sprint, Speed, and Insta, all of which are now available for online players. Bwin.party hopes that by jumping on the bandwagon, they can still get a slice of the pie that PokerStars’ Zoom Poker is currently dominating.
Easier said than done, especially with how Zoom Poker has been performing as of late. But everybody’s taken to the “imitation is the sincerest form of flattery” adage on fast-fold poker. Bwin.party won’t be the first, and they certainly won’t be the last; if it makes good business, then it’s certainly worth the time and resources to getting their version off the ground as soon as possible.
