Online Poker Traffic Update

Cash game player traffic has been a mixed bag over the past month as a number of top ten poker rooms and networks showed increases over totals recorded in the first week of July.

However, just as many sites lost traffic as gained, and at least a couple experienced rather hefty declines. Partypoker took the biggest hit, a whopping 40% decrease in ring game players from 1,000 to 600, according to PokerScout.

The steep drop in action may be the result of a vicious DDoS attack over the weekend. Nothing is more frustrating to players (other than rake increases, perhaps, or changing table selection procedures) than being disconnected from playing while working on building that bankroll.

The huge decline knocked Partypoker from the top ten worldwide and into an 11th place tie with MPN with a seven-day average of 600 players as of this writing. MPN is hoping to sneak into the land of most popular poker rooms and networks in the future and will be adding a new poker skin later this year to bolster its chances.

Also heading into negative territory in a big way was Full Tilt. A desire to reshape online poker by catering to casual players has seemingly riled some loyalists, causing a 20% decrease from 1,000 to 800 players in a seven-day average. Partypoker and Full Tilt were tied with each other for 7th place a month ago and are now tied with other poker rooms for 11th and 8th place, respectively.

Additional poker sites that saw player traffic tumble over the past month were PokerStars (-50 to 14,500), the iPoker Network (-100 to 1,250) and Winamax (-50 to 1,000). But their declines were modest compared to Partypoker and Full Tilt.

Positively popular

While PokerStars' cash game traffic headed south, the same cannot be said for its ring-fenced offerings. PokerStars.it (+50 to 1,150), PokerStars.es (+100 to 900) and PokerStars.fr (+100 to 800) were all gainers.

Also pointing north was #2 ranked 888poker, adding 100 cash game players to 2,100. 888poker's Summer Splashout promotion may be part of the reason behind the increase in players.

Rounding out the gainers for the month was Adjarabet, who moved into the top ten due to the downward slide of Partypoker. Adjarabet now averages 50 more players (650) than the first week of July and has a tenuous hold on spot no. 10.

Incidentally, Bodog's estimated player traffic remained stable at 1,700 and was the only top ten poker room whose player numbers did not fluctuate.

U.S.-friendly, unregulated

Unregulated poker rooms in the U.S. not named Bodog/Bovada sort of mirrored the results of the top poker rooms worldwide as one gained players, another lost players, and three experienced no change. The Chico (475), Merge (280) and Equity (140) poker networks all sailed straight, steady and on an even keel.

The Winning Poker Network was the lone gainer, grabbing 75 more players on average to advance to 500. Last Sunday's $1 million guaranteed tournament on WPN may be responsible for some of the increase, as players who busted out or cashed in the tournament may have clicked on over to the cash tables afterward.

The Revolution Network lost 15 players and now averages just 70. About 50 or so more can be found playing on the network during peak hours.

U.S.-friendly, regulated

Player traffic in New Jersey was up for both networks. WSOP.com and 888poker gained 10 players to 190, while the Borgata and Partypoker tandem also saw their average increase by 10 players, but only up to 120.

The Multi State Poker Network of WSOP.com in Nevada and the poker sites operating in Delaware did not fare as well as New Jersey. Ring game player traffic fell from 220 to 180 due to the end of the WSOP. The festival was still underway during PokerTube's last published player traffic update.