Global Online Poker Traffic Down For 8th Week In Row

Online poker tracking site PokerScout.com has just released its cash game figures for last week, and the news continues to indictate an industry in decline. The loss may have been just 0.1% but, nonetheless, poker traffic has now suffered eight weeks of consecutive falling growth compared to the previous week, with just one positive period reported over the last twelve weeks.
Overall, there are 12% less online cash game players gambling online compared to the same week in 2013.
Naturally, PokerStars continues to be light-years ahead of the competition, with its seven-day average of 21,500 cash game players almost ten times that reported by nearest rivals 888poker (2,300), PartyPoker (2,000), and the iPoker Network (2,000).
PokerStars owned Full Tilt Poker (1,900) then lies in 5th place, while the online poker giant also dominates the remaining top ten ranked online poker sites, with PokerStars.it in 6th (1,600), and PokerStars.es in 8th with 1,400 players, representing roughly 70% of the Spanish online poker market. However, PokerStars.fr lies just outside the top ten in 11th spot with an average of 1,200 cash game players.
Change wise, Bodog/Bovada (1,400) dropped from 7th to 8th place, where it currently ties for position with PokerStars.es, while  Winamax slipped into 7th spot (1,500). Aside from these two movers, all the other seven spots within the top ten stayed the same compared to the week before.
One of the sites reporting the biggest slide in online traffic was the world’s largest Bitcoin poker site, SealsWithClubs, which was hit badly after China decided Bitcoin is a commodity and not a currency, which led to Bitcoin losing a quarter of its value. Overall, the site’s traffic plummeted 15% last week, and as PokerScout highlighted in its report, “What’s bad for Bitcoin is bad for SealsWithClubs.”
Turning our attention to the regulated US market, three sites continue to monopolize the New Jersey arena, with The Party Borgata Network ruling the roost with a seven-day average of 180 cash game players, followed by WSOP.com (140) and the All American Poker Network (95). In the other main regulated state of Nevada, WSOP.com is the top dog with 110 players, followed by Ultimate Poker reporting an average of 75 cash players over seven-day.