According to this week’s online poker traffic report courtesy of PokerScout, the industry saw a modest increase in overall cash game traffic.
Although only a 0.1% increase overall, a fault in the data collection at PokerStars – which may be the culprit in a reported 8% decline in its traffic – may be suppressing a much larger traffic improvement. PokerStars represents over 50% of the entire poker industry and, removing this anomalous data, the top ten sites saw on average a 4.7% improvement in traffic.
One of the biggest gainers was PartyPoker, which solidified its second place position over iPoker thanks to 7% improvement this week. Both sites have been actively reworking their poker offerings and rake models; Party recently reduced the rake on low-limit SNGs following a change to their rake method, that caused much controversy.
Meanwhile, rival iPoker reduced their fixed limit rake across the board this month, welcomed by players. But it suffered a PR setback as confusion over alleged “house bots” on their site continues to be misreported in poker media.
