PokerStars Still Keeping Full Tilt Poker a Distant 2nd
At time during the past two months, Full Tilt Poker looked as if it could eat away at a fairly significant chunk of number one online poker room, PokerStars.com, market share. In 2010, Gambling911.com suspects that will be the goal as both industry behemoths exhaust their efforts on playing catchup and keep away, respectively.
By year's end, PokerStars customer base remained about double that of Full Tilt Poker's following a review of traffic site PokerSiteScout.com.
PokerStars averaged an astounding 29000 real cash players online at any given time with a 24 hour peak of 45500. Full Tilt Poker had a little over half that number - 16900. Likewise, Full Tilt's peak had reached just shy of 25000. This doesn't mean that Full Tilt Poker should be shedding any tears. Quite the contrary.
"Consider the fact that the relatively new online poker network Merge Poker only had a mere 425 peak players over the last 24 hours and it is easy to see why PokerStars and Full Tilt Poker are so dominant," expressed Gambling911.com poker writer, Ace King.
PartyGaming, the once dominant force in online gambling, practically had a mere quarter of Full Tilt Poker's peak 24 hour traffic, though that might be a bit unfair since Party does not cater to the US market and much of its players were out partying or already nursing their hangovers at the time this report was going to press. Nevertheless, their 7 day average was also a quarter of Full Tilt's.
Some of the biggest movers in online poker over the past week were the CakePoker Network, which moved ahead of Microgaming to take ninth place. Microgaming appears to be losing market share in recent months. Cake supplies its skins to some of Gambling911.com's biggest sponsors including DoylesRoom.com and Sportsbook.com. DoylesRoom.com's online poker room is aggressively promoted on the Gambling911.com website.
Elsewhere, Svenska Spel reclaimed 12th place from PacificPoker, and PKR regained the 14th spot from Bodog. Also, win2day edged ahead of Merge Gaming network to take 19th place, according to PokerSiteScout.com.
Christopher Costigan, Gambling911.com Publisher
