Party Poker's Income

[Jax_Grinder]

First post, so if this has been discussed before (did'nt find it using search) I apologize...And if this belongs in another forum, I'm open to suggestions.

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While grinding it out on Party, I noticed that they are up well over 60K players tonight. Recalling all of the posts about how Party takes advantage of its position in the marketplace (which I simply call competetive advantage - what do they owe us?), I got to thinking - just HOW MUCH money do these monkies make?

Assumptions/Facts:
1. Current peak usage appears to be about 8,000 tables/65K players.
2. Including off-peak times, Party averages about 5,000 tables/40K players.
3. Ring/Tourney split is about 45% / 55%.
4. Rake structure is 5% up to $3 per hand at all limits.
5. Avg. rake per hand $1 (may be WILDLY off mark, but I think conservative - low limits weight this WAY down).
6. PP turns about 65 hands per second at ring tables.
7. 1000 SnG tables at any given time turned .8 times per hour (estimating average of time to complete single table SnG and mutli-table SnG).
8. Avg. fee of $5 per SnG. (Again, a complete guess, but should be on the LOW side...).

I counted up the ring games in play, the # of SnG's, etc. and punched in some numbers and came up with $2,500,000,000 per year at their CURRENT usage levels.

Not gonna bother posting my numbers unless someone asks. But I think it is interesting in the sense that PP is not likely to concern itself to greatly with "giving back" to its customers until another site starts to steal players and drive their marketing costs related to sign-up and retention WAY up. Right now they are money press. Think Microsoft (PP) v. Apple (PS).

Thoughts? Flames?

PS: My general impression of those posters on 2+2 who do nothing but flame and berate other posters is that these are the guys with what I like to call "internet muscles".

[Punker]

1. Current peak usage appears to be about 8,000 tables/65K players.
2. Including off-peak times, Party averages about 5,000 tables/40K players.

How many of these are play money players?

[goldseraph]

I believe they made around 250 mm last year, your estimate is wayyy too high.

[cwsiggy]

I know that Paradise I think it was was sold to some sport betting operation in the UK for like $300 million or so. Not bad for the people who started it.

[Jax_Grinder]

Good question, thanks. I looked and they have about 1400 play money tables going at the moment. Not entirely sure, however, that these are counted in the totals posted on their client screen. I counted somewhere around 5000 ring and 2000 tourney tables, so that number (1500) would seem about right. Obviously that would skew the number down some...but it still a giant number. Maybe someone can rough their own figures and see if I am way off (which would make me feel better, frankly.)

[Jax_Grinder]

Couple of thoughts:

1. No reason to disbelieve you on '04 income, but do you have a source?
2. At the start of '04 (if I recall), they were PEAKING at about 12 to 15K players. 65K is about 4.5 x or so that number, so carry it forward...
3. Party has added higher limits (30/60, 1000 SnG's, etc) and has expanded Omaha and Stud offerings during that time -i.e., more options = increased raked hands played in real terms.
4. My number is off, to be sure, but by over 800%. Not possible!

[goldseraph]

I don't have a source, sorry. I'm too lazy to find one, but I have read that number cited more than once. It could be more, but suffice it to say as long as the poker craze continues, they will be making a shitload. I think 2.5 billion is much too high of an estimate, not sure why you threw that number out there as it bears no validity. I agree Party should offer more to their customers, a nicer GUI, more bonuses, free rolls, better variety of MTT's. However, they really don't have that much incentive to invest in these things until someone seriously challenges them as the largest fishbowl.

[jacobsta]

Visit www.pokerpulse.com
They list 2350 Real money ring tables,
17709 ring game players
20438 tournament players
All real money, as the peak for party.
If you drop the number of hands to say 55/hr and set average rake at something more like .65-.75 I think you will probably get a more accurate value as most of the tables are at the lowest limits and you also have to make up for the hands that are not raked (or in NL, that are raked .10, .20, etc)

[Jax_Grinder]

Interesting info on that site, thanks. In my calculation I tried to backdoor the number of hands raked by tracking the turnover on the bad beat counter ($.5 per hand - came out to $60 per minute over a 3 minute period...i extrapolated that to 2 raked hands per second over the 75 bad beat tables and used that as an average for all ring tables of 60 raked hands per second). Your methodology and assumptions may be more accurate (who knows), but the number, including tourney fees, still comes out to well in excess of $1B for the year....if they don't continue to add players at the rate of +25% per month.

[TDCumm16]

I believe the difference between Jax and gold's estimates maybe that gold reported $250M income for last year, whereas Jax' estimate is just a revenue estimate and does take into account the expenses Party incurs