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Written by Stefan | Thursday, March 10th, 2011
Online poker continues to grow, this week being no different with a 3% growth in as little as two weeks, according to PokerScout.com’s “Online Poker Traffic Report.” Of the top 10 online poker sites, eight of those saw gains this week.
After ring game players walked away following the more than $1 million Bad Beat Jackpot pay out, the Cereus Network was in the red with a 4% decline. PartyPoker also saw a drop of 1% after February’s 9% raise and the conclusion of the Snowball promotion on February 28th.
It should also be noted that both Full Tilt Poker and PokerStars have now shown year-over-year drops of 5+% for the first time ever. The two biggest sites in the industry have never been in the red at the same time prior to 2011.
One factor that contributes to the decline is that many players have set up camp at their own national sites on for example the newer Italian and French networks. However, FullTilt still maintains twice the traffic of PartyPoker, its nearest competitor, and together, the “Big Two” hold almost 60% of the global market.
Last year, Stars experienced an overall growth of 32%, while Stars saw a 69% growth. This year has shown practically no annual growth at all, though we are still in the first quarter.
Unfortunately, New Jersey’s veto of the regulation of online poker crushed the hopes and dreams that the first US state would in fact legalize online poker after the bill passed both houses, only to get shot down by Governor Chris Christie.
Despite all of this, it is safe to say that online poker isn’t going anywhere. In fact, the industry is just normalizing after it’s incredibly fast and successful rise over the past decade. Like any other industry, it is affected by the global environment. It is only a matter of time that regulated online poker will find its way into the homes of US citizens.
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