GGPoker Breaks Its Own Records Once Again in 2024

Our poker traffic insights from October 2024 concluded that GGPoker Network has dominated the online poker scene since January 2022, when it took first place from PokerStars.

2024 Poker Traffic Trends: GGPoker Shapes the Landscape, WPT Global a Strong Contender

Now, if we not only want to know who is winning but want to know the possible reasons behind why they are winning, we need to consider metrics other than cash game traffic data.

Luckily, other metrics are available yearly when Natural8’s parent network publishes its annual infographic about last year’s statistics.

According to the network’s recently released data for 2024, GGPoker has once again broken its own records from the previous year. 

Key Metrics Highlighting GGPoker’s Growth

The fresh data shows formidable increases across nearly all key metrics, giving insight into how GGPoker Network is able to grow every year while other sites stagnate at best.

A remarkable accomplishment of 2024 was the increase in tournament prize money: GGPoker awarded an astounding $3.89 billion in tournament prize money, a substantial 29.24% increase from the previous year’s $3.01 billion. This equals, on average, more than $10 million paid out every day!

The volume of hands dealt on the platform increased by more than 1 billion since the previous year: 4.87 billion hands were played throughout the year—that’s 154 hands every second!

According to GGPoker Network, out of these hands, 2.29 billion were from cash games, and 2.58 billion were played in tournaments.

Strategic Partnerships and Acquisitions

This reinforces a tendency that began the previous year: the volume of tournament hands exceeded the number of cash game hands on the poker network for the first time in 2023, and based on the fresh data, the gap between these numbers keeps widening.

This is no surprise to those who have paid close attention to the events surrounding GGPoker in recent years.

The poker network became partners with the Asian Poker Tour (APT) in November 2023, teamed up with Triton Poker in July 2024 to hold WSOP Paradise 2024, and approximately one month before the tournament began, the network’s parent company, NSUS Group acquired the WSOP brand altogether for $500 million.

NSUS Group Finalizes Purchase of World Series of Poker brand

Naturally, these partnerships and acquisitions increased tournaments played on GGPoker, including online Day 1s for WSOP Paradise, which definitely bumped up the total tournament prize money for the year.

WSOP Paradise 2024: The Ultimate Poker Event in The Bahamas

The network’s growth is also evident in cash game numbers. GGPoker Network saw an increase of 18.2% since the previous year, with an average of 10,701 concurrent cash game players on its platforms.

Promotions and Player Incentives

GGPoker’s 2024 milestone infographic also lets us make an educated guess on how the network keeps expanding its horizons: in 2024, it gave away $464 million across countless promotions, including a generous welcome bonus.

This translates to a more than $100 million increase from the previous year and precisely double the amount of free giveaways in 2021.

Natural8 Bonus Code 2025

This strategy of investing in players likely plays a crucial role in attracting and retaining recreational players within the network’s ecosystem.

Another key data point is the money given away in All-in or Fold jackpots: this amount saw an increase of almost 250% over three years, from $60M to $146M, further emphasizing GGPoker’s focus on recreational players who prefer fast-paced poker formats.

Challenges and Controversies

Despite the continued growth, 2024 didn’t pass without GGPoker getting tangled up in yet another controversy. In November, the network changed its high-stakes VIP cash games from publicly accessible to private, invite-only tables, sending ripples through the poker community.

Revolution or Regression? GGPoker Shakes Up High-Stakes Play with Invite-Only Tables

This was not the first time the poker provider faced backlash: first, in spring 2023, players organized a boycott against the increased rake cap in high-stakes games, and then, in December, a security breach shocked the poker world. A GGPoker superuser was able to access flop and turn all-in equities, thus gaining an unfair edge over their opponents.

Market Leadership and Future Outlook

Still, somehow, GGPoker Network manages to bounce back from these incidents every single time, continuing to grow its market share, which is currently more than 60%, with more traffic than all other dot-com poker providers altogether.

These numbers clearly show that the consistently growing network does not have much room to expand in the dot-com market. Still, when NSUS Group acquired the WSOP brand from Ceasars Entertainment, it was part of the deal that Ceasars must use GGPoker’s gaming software in the future. This might easily result in GGPoker’s client eventually appearing in the US market.

Another direction where the network could expand is in the separate markets of Europe: Italy, Spain, and France. PokerStars and the iPoker Network are currently operating in these markets – two companies that GGPoker has already beaten on a much larger battlefield.

With its record of consistent growth and ability to innovate, GGPoker is well-positioned not just to maintain its leadership in the online poker industry but to break its own records in the upcoming years as well.