Online Poker Traffic Up


Tuesday August 9,2011 : After falling last week, the game rebounds
 
An  independent online poker monitoring company reports that after losing ground last week, the market has rebounded, with traffic rising by almost 2 percent, thanks mainly to a strong performance from market leader Pokerstars and the other Top Ten Poker Sites
 
However, five of the top ten sites and networks experienced reduced traffic.
 
PokerStars continues to pick up market share in the wake of the Full Tilt Poker shutdown, reports Pokerscout. Since June 2011, PokerStars traffic has increased 30 percent, with the influx of players constituting 65 percent of the players lost by Full Tilt.
 
"Worldwide, PokerStars dominates the market to an extent that hasn't been seen since the heyday of Party Poker in 2003-2004," Pokerscout reports. "When PokerStars.it and PokerStars.fr players are included, the PokerStars brand now constitutes more than 50 percent of the worldwide online poker market. Among the dot-coms, PokerStars has a 54 percent market share."
 
During the week Playtech's iPoker Network emerged as the second biggest poker site in terms of traffic, outpacing Party Poker and for the first time boasting the second largest player pool in the online business.
 
Other dynamic movers included:
 
• Everest Poker dropped three spots to 16th.
 
•IPN moved up one to 13th
 
•Bodog jumped from 16th to 14th.
 
•PartyPoker.fr made 19th place, while PeoplesNetwork.it dropped out of the top 20.
 
Looked at on a year-to-year basis, it is clear that Black Friday continues to cast a cloud over the online poker industry, with online poker traffic – excluding the dedicated systems in Italy and France – declining by 22 percent over the same period last year.
 
Online poker operations that continue to do well include
 
888poker up 127 percent
 
Merge Gaming Network up 75 percent
 
Bodog up  65 percent
 
iPoker Network up 30 percent
 
PartyPoker up 20 percent
 
Action Poker Network up 56 percent
 
Among the less successful operators were:
 
Full Tilt Poker down 100 percent
 
Cereus Network down 97 percent
 
International Poker Network (IPN) down by 41 percent