PokerStars Sets New Record: Shows Online Poker is Still Alive and Kicking

Doyle Brunson has demonstrated that he's alive and kicking.  Well, maybe about to kick the bucket.  It's just another example of how US facing online poker rooms continue to see explosive growth and a propensity to continue chugging along despite legislation that nearly crippled the industry just one year ago.  Another major online poker room, PokerStars, has hit its own milestone (no they are not 110 years old like Doyle).

PartTimePoker Sunday reported that PokerStars has become the first online poker room to hit 20,000 simultaneous real money ring game players.

PokerStars set a new record for online poker traffic yesterday, becoming the first poker site in history to reach 20,000 simultaneous real money ring game players as measured by PokerScout.com. This achievement was made possible in large part by the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act (UIGEA), ironically designed to curb online gambling in the US. The law, enacted in 2006, instead drove out publicly traded competitors and catapulted PokerStars and Full Tilt Poker to the top of the online poker world. In the year since the law was passed, both of the privately held poker sites have doubled in size, but PokerStars retains a better than 2 to 1 advantage over its nearest competitor.

PokerStars is, according to that website, the leading online poker room and has been since rival PartyPoker left the US marketplace last year.  Party has maintained the number two position ever since. 

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Payton O'Brien, Gambling911.com Senior Editor POBrien@CostiganMedia.com 

Originally published December 31, 2007 12:08 am EST