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PokerScout.com, which keeps tabs on “real cash” player traffic at all the major online poker rooms, reports that the worldwide online poker market shrank a colossal 23 percent since the indictments of Full Tilt Poker, PokerStars and UB.com on Friday. These sites have effectively been forced to exit the US market after the US Justice Department seized their respective .com and .net domain names.
But there is one – make that two – bright notes.
Online poker rooms still catering to the US market have all seen tremendous growth rates in recent days. Bodog Poker is up 26 percent, Merge Gaming is up 23 percent, Cake Poker is up 19 percent, the much smaller Everleaf is up 8 percent.
Likewise, European-based online poker sites looking to enter the US market now have less competition and there are questions remaining as to whether Full Tilt and PokerStars can survive in the Euro market following bad press and fears of addition prosecutions of company executives, Interpol arrests and further money seizures.
Traffic in the European Web card rooms not only surged, so did their share prices. Most of the online poker room networks based out of Europe are publicly traded entities.
PokerStars witnessed a 9 percent growth, iPoker was up 8 percent and 888.com was up 5 percent. The biggest increase in traffic was seen at PKR Poker, which recorded a 21 percent rise.
- Christopher Costigan, Gambling911.com Publisher
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