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Though we didn’t celebrate it at the time, Online Poker Report turned ten this year. It’s with mixed feelings that I must inform you, our readers, that ten years will also be the end of its run, though hopefully not the end of our relationship with you.
OPR’s very first post dates back to February 12, 2012. Appropriately enough, it’s about the acquisition of Bluff Media – a very prominent brand through poker’s boom years – by Churchill Downs. That sale was part of the end of an era in gambling history, as industry dynamics had changed dramatically following the events of Black Friday. The company’s eponymous magazine went out of print three years later.
Those same events had given birth to OPR. This new site had the mission of documenting what many hoped would be online poker’s rebirth in the US, as a formally regulated industry.
Ten years is an eternity when it comes to anything internet-related. Just as Bluff Magazine was a product of the poker boom, OPR was a product of the post-Black Friday era. Times have changed, especially in the US.
The Supreme Court’s decision to strike down the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act in 2018 marked the beginning of a new era. Online poker fills an ever-smaller niche, while sports betting occupies most of the mainstream’s attention, and online casinos are likely to be the big money maker of the future.
Our coverage has been pivoting away from online poker in recent years, and towards iGaming more broadly. It’s come to the point that the OPR brand no longer makes much sense for what we’re doing. Rather than attempt a rebranding, we’ve decided it’s time to retire the site.
This change will happen sometime next week, or the week after.
The same coverage you rely on, in a new place
The good news is that this isn’t the end of our industry coverage. Not by a long shot. The OPR team will remain together, and continue to cover the same sort of topics we always have, and provide the same analysis, just in a new place. A place with room for us to grow into something bigger.
As some readers are surely aware, and others perhaps not, OPR is not a standalone site, but part of a large network of sites owned by Catena Media. That gives us the opportunity to move staff around to where they’ll fit the best.
The OPR news team has been in need of a more relevant brand. Meanwhile, Bonus.com has been in need of a dedicated news team.
As of today, I will be taking on a new role as Managing Editor for Casino News at Bonus, as well as MichiganSharp and NJGamblingSites. My lead writer Heather Fletcher and all the freelancers we work with will be coming with me.
One great aspect of this strategic decision is that it means we can double down on news. At OPR, my efforts have been split between keeping the news flowing, and building out the rest of the site. Bonus, MichiganSharp and NJGS have a strong team already working on those other aspects, so I no longer have to divide my attention. Casino news includes online poker, so we will still be keeping you abreast of any developments on that front.
In other words, our dedicated readers won’t be missing out on anything. Rather, you’ll be getting even more of what you’re used to, just with a different label on the package.
A brief history of Online Poker Report
OPR has gone through many internal changes over its ten years. The poker media is a small world, though, and everyone crosses paths repeatedly. Although OPR has changed staff several times, all those individuals’ professional lives have been braided together in a way that has lent the site a certain continuity.
OPR was founded in 2012 by Chris Grove, now an important industry investor. The goal was to try to do affiliate marketing in a new way. At OPR, we’ve always treated the news seriously and as separate from the site reviews and state pages which provide us with our revenue. Rather than driving players to offshore sites, OPR became a trusted source for information about the efforts to create a legal market for online poker in the US.
Two years later, in 2014, I was getting my start in poker writing, urged on by my friend Steve Ruddock. Early on, I did some writing for Chris and OPR, though most of my work was for another site, Part Time Poker. Steve ended up being one of OPR’s most prolific contributors, much of that under the direction of Dustin Gouker, who had left his Lead Writer role at Part Time Poker just as I was coming in.
Dustin was at the helm when OPR, along with many other North American affiliate sites, got snapped up by Catena Media in 2017. He’s now the Vice President of Content for all of Catena North America. Between Dustin and myself, the site was in the hands of Eric Ramsey, now in charge of data analysis for the North American market.
With that sort of rich, tight-knit history, there are obviously a lot of emotions associated with the decision to wind the site down.
Thoughts from OPR contributors, past and present
I hope everyone who’s enjoyed the content at OPR during my time here will continue to follow me and my team at Bonus, MichiganSharp and NJGamblingSites. Having said my piece, I’d like to finish the site’s send-off by giving some space to others who’ve contributed over the years to talk about what OPR meant to them.
Dustin Gouker, former OPR writer and site runner
I am not sure there’s anyone over here more emotional about the retirement of OPR, and I am one of the people who reluctantly decided this was for the best.
Poker was once a huge part of my life, and OPR was a go-to resource for me well before I ever wrote for it. That I got a chance to run this site while also covering the nascent daily fantasy sports and sports betting industries at Legal Sports Report was an amazing opportunity. I’ve written hundreds of stories here, and a little part of me will die along with the site.
I echo a lot of what Alex said. Even though the name of the site will be different, we’re going to do more and better content with the move. OPR was a great brand for an alternate reality in which online poker enjoyed a resurgence in North America that may still come, but is still far off.
We still cover poker at USPoker.com and PokerScout.com, if you need more of a poker fix, and at many of our regional sites under the PlayUSA brand/umbrella.
Anyway, this really isn’t a farewell, even though it feels like one.
Eric Ramsey, former OPR writer and site runner
Most of us have broadened beyond poker in recent years, but many of those who’ve contributed to this site owe a lot to the game. Like the others, I was an avid reader before I ever suspected I would make a career around here.
The list of folks with bylines on OPR includes some of the smartest people in this space, and I’m flattered to have my name alongside theirs. And being entrusted to run the site for a time, to maintain the standard that Chris and others established, remains a source of professional pride for me. Some of the stories I’ve written and edited here have come to act as mileposts along this journey toward broader regulation, and I’m proud of that too.
Online poker isn’t just the reason we all started writing here either. It is, in many ways, a spark that helped ignite the proliferation of other forms of online gambling in the US. And OPR is the fountainhead for a network of dozens of sites that cover it all.
It’s sad to see it go, but it’s a reflection of just how much things have changed in the past decade for myself and for the industry as a whole.
See y’all at Bonus.
John Holden, long-time OPR freelance contributor
For me, the ending of Online Poker Report is bittersweet.
The site was one of the first to provide in depth analysis of the gaming industry on a steady basis. It was also one of the few sites in the early days that was reputable, consistently in its coverage the industry, and not behind a pay wall.
The emergence of OPR and subsequently its sibling, Legal Sports Report, really changed the way that gaming industry news was made available in the US. Long before I ever got the opportunity to write for OPR, it was my go-to site for industry news, dating all the way back to 2012.
That said, while I’m sad that OPR is shutting down, I am excited for what is to come with the team’s new home at Bonus.