Global Online Poker Traffic Up 6% Last Week
January 14, 2014 2:18 pmLast week, global online poker traffic recorded a 6% gain in cash game players with all the previous week’s top ten poker rooms all showing increased numbers from the week before. The positive rise in traffic was comparable in size to that at the same time last year, which marks a time when the prime winter season gets underway. Nevertheless, the online poker market as a whole still remains 11% lower than at the same time in 2013.
Naturally, online poker behemoth PokerStars continues to lead the industry with almost ten times the number of cash players of its nearest competitors, followed by 888poker, iPoker Network, Full Tilt Poker, and then PartyPoker.
However, Winamax.fr moving into 7th place at the expense of PokerStars.es which subsequently moved down to 8th, while Microgaming’s MPN jumped two places to 10th spot after reporting a huge 26% improvement in traffic for the week, with its gain coming once again at the expense of PokerStars.fr, which was forced into 11th place.
PokerStars was obviously disappointed to see its French offering fall out of the top ten poker rooms, especially after recently announcing a new promotion designed to attract ring game players from 7th place ranked Winamax, which currently enjoys 1,700 average weekly cash game players compared to PokerStars.fr with 1,350 players.
Turning our attention to the US market, online poker traffic fell in New Jersey last week with Party Borgata Network, WSOP.com, All American Poker Network and Ultimate Poker all reporting decline in traffic. However, the fall in traffic was actually due to a tough comparison against the previous week when a surge in tourists for the New Year holiday saw New Jersey’s online traffic hit record highs.
Finally, dedicated bitcoin card room, SealsWithClubs, continues to make gains with the site having added 20 more cash players throughout the week to improve its seven-day average to 140.