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Some in the online poker community choose to brandish sports betting as "shady" and "not as important in the whole scheme of things" when it comes to the online gambling sector.
Don't tell that to the struggling Merge Poker network.
Today they will officially welcome the biggest online sportsbook firm in terms of overall customers, Sportsbook.com.
Merge flagship online poker room, Carbon Poker, Marketing Director Ian Williams responded to questions of growth from Poker News Daily reporter Dan Cypra when asked about a potential four times growth in overall customers:
"The guys at Merge and Jazette (Sportsbook.com parent company) know the level of business they do right now and if you applied that to our business directly give or take some dropout in the crossover, those numbers seem to be a good estimate," Williams said.
Merge and Carbon Poker desperately need the boost.
As Gambling911.com reported last month, Carbon lost half of its customer base over the past 6 months. That trend seemingly continues as Carbon flatlined at an average of 200 real cash players per day.
Those numbers will dramatically increase, however.
"Certain sports brands have looser players than a pure poker brand; however, I think Jazette brings with them a bit of both. When you target poker players as an acquisition source, you will find them in general to be good rakers. If you acquire sports traffic and try cross-sell it to poker, you will get loose players. They are actively pursuing poker players in all of the major places that we and other standalone poker brands do. That is why they are successful and have such a large base of players."
Sportsbook.com and PlayersOnly.com will be leaving the Cake Network, but Cake is not likely to feel too much of a hit. Their flagship online poker room, DoylesRoom.com continues to grow at a rapid pace. Doyles itself enjoys a strong bond with the sportsbook community in the online gambling Mecca of Costa Rica.
Ace King, Gambling911.com
