Having opened on November 26, New Jersey online poker market is barely a week old, but already surpassed the six-month its elder Nevada market. Two sites, WSOP.com and BorgataPoker.com – a joint enterprise of PartyPoker and Borgata Casinos, quickly assumed leadership in cash game traffic with the All American Poker Network (888poker) a distant third.

Two more companies, Ultimate Poker and Betfair NJ, have also launched poker offerings in New Jersey.

In this competitive field, the WSOP brand, already a household name in live poker, rose to the top, where it belongs, posting gains in cash game participation throughout the week. Currently, WSOP.com is averaging 130 cash games players a day peaking on Tuesday at 384. On the tournament side, meanwhile, its December 2nd $5K Guarantee boasted 179 players, 117 rebuys and 106 add-ons.

The site has already announced its first big promotion, offering, in December and January, up to 40% in rakeback to players who complete the requisite number of raked hands. A raked hand, in WSOP’s definition, is a cash hand in which users contribute to a portion of the rake, meaning that they actually have to participate in the hand. This comes in addition to their introductory 100% deposit bonus of up to $400 plus $10 free.

Deposit options offered include MasterCard, bank transfer ACH, and a land casino cage at Caesars Atlantic City.

The main issue in the first week of operation, not only within WSOP.com, but among all the newly minted New Jersey rooms, was geolocation – about 12% of all users located within NJ borders, according to the reports, have been denied logon or were kicked out during a playing session because the software could not validate their geographic location. Although significantly better than the 35% blocked play rate in Nevada during the month of May, this could be an impediment enough to smooth growth of the market, at least in the early stages.  According to player reports, this appears to be especially prevalent among laptop and tablet users.

Despite a few technical glitches – which no doubt will be soon solved – NJ online poker market, with WSOP among its leaders, got off to a very good start. As gaming corporations are jousting for domination in this potentially extremely lucrative market, it’s time to expect some lofty promotions coming players’ way. Stay tuned.