Managing Editor
BetMGM Poker remains the most successful U.S. site for the moment, but it no longer looks as dominant as it has for the past year. In large part, that’s due to the reboot of PokerStars as a FanDuel product in April. In May, however, BetMGM saw a revenue downturn and bled some of its market share back not just to PokerStars, but to all its competitors.
PokerScout estimates total market revenue for the month of May to be $8.3 million. That includes exact values for Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Delaware, plus estimates for other states based on what data is available from their respective regulators. Full numerical details are available on our revenue tracker page.
That total represents a decline of a little over $600,000 from April, or a drop of 7.2% in the daily average. The bulk of that comes from BetMGM, which saw its revenue drop by over half a million. PokerStars saw a smaller decrease of around $130,000, while other operators changed by less than $100,000 in either direction.
This comes amid what is typically a period of seasonal decline for most gambling operators, as the weather improves and demand for indoor entertainment options drops.
It’s possible that BetMGM’s struggles aren’t quite as severe as our methodology suggests. The biggest monthly decline came in Michigan (-22% daily average), where we can only estimate poker revenue as a percentage of overall iGaming. It’s clear that the online casino vertical is experiencing a downturn there as well. However, even the states where exact numbers are available showed a drop of 11%.
BetMGM’s Rise Was Sudden But Decisive
Looking back to late 2024 and early 2025, BetMGM rose to claim PokerStars’ throne in two stages.
The first came amid the usual seasonal upswing at the start of winter 2024. Although PokerStars added nearly $700,000 to its monthly revenue from October 2024 to January 2025, BetMGM added over $1.1 million, an increase of nearly 50%.
That put the two sites in a deadlock for the market lead, which lasted until Pennsylvania finally joined the Multistate Internet Gaming Agreement after years of heel-dragging.
It was expected that all Pennsylvania sites would take advantage of the possibility to join the multistate networks, but PokerStars made the surprising decision to sit out. That choice makes sense now that we understand that it planned to shut its sites down and reboot as a FanDuel product using iPoker software. At the time, however, it seemed baffling that it would pass on an upgrade that would clearly be necessary to fight back against BetMGM’s encroachment.
With PokerStars’ failure to network, its revenue and market share plummeted. While WSOP’s summer bracelet events allowed it to take the top spot momentarily, its year-over-year performance has been flat. BetMGM’s continued growth suggested that it would soon establish an unassailable lead.
Now, with its revenue sliding at the one-year anniversary of the Pennsylvania liquidity-sharing event, it is suddenly looking very assailable. It still holds a four percentage point lead over PokerStars, which would ordinarily be comfortable enough. Yet, two months ago, that was a 22-point lead. Although PokerStars can’t expect the honeymoon period for its FanDuel product to last forever, it may not have to if BetMGM continues to slide of its own accord.
WSOP Fails to See Pre-Series Upswing
The wildcard in all this is WSOP, which should be benefiting from increased traffic with the summer series in Las Vegas underway. Those gains will only become apparent in mid-July, when regulators release the revenue figures for June. It’s curious, however, that we didn’t see a preliminary uptick in May.
The schedule for bracelet events is almost the same this year as it was last year. The 2025 and 2026 schedules each consist of 30 events, beginning on May 30 or 31.
Given that the first event was only at the very tail end of May, it may not prove to mean much that revenue was almost unchanged from April. However, that wasn’t the case last year. In May 2025, WSOP’s daily average revenue was up 34.3% month-over-month, then another 23.7% in June. That was in the wake of Pennsylvania joining the liquidity pool, but the total market only rose 11.9% that month, and BetMGM was up 21.4%.
So, one might attribute about 10 points of that 2025 increase to pre-series hype, and we don’t see that this year. On the other hand, the 2024 series saw a 11.8% drop in May, followed by a 45.5% surge in June. One way or another, it seems we can expect about a 33% gain from April to June, so our benchmark for WSOP this year would be a $3 million month. If it falls much short of that, then the conclusion would be that it is also losing out to the new PokerStars-FanDuel crossover.
