The end of each calendar year offers the chance for accolades to be dished out identifying the best of the best during the previous 365 days. Industry site Online Gambling Insider recently handed out a dozen awards for 2008, including the granddaddy of designations, the Online Casino of 2008, which went to VIP Slots Casino.

Online Gambling Insider’s Founder commented in a press release sent out on Monday, “The competition was tough, but VIP Slots Casino got its nose in front of a host of celebrated casinos, as it offers a very complete online casino gambling experience. The lucrative promotions, unique loyalty reward program, and the backing and support of one of the longest operating groups in online gambling made this casino stand out.” The site is managed by the English Harbour Group.

A handful of other awards were dished out, including Best New Casino, which went to Online Vegas Casino. A U.S.-specific casino award is also given out annually. This year, it went to Paradise 8. The Best U.K. Online Casino went to that belonging to Ladbrokes, which also operates one of the most popular online poker rooms in the world. Ladbrokes sponsored poker pros include Jonas Danielsson, Jon Kalmar, Jeff Kimber, and Norwegian pro Andreas Hoivold.

Additional awards included Best Sportsbook, which was handed out to BetUS.com. The Best Overall Gambling Suite went to PlayersOnly, which accepts customers from the United States and has seen its stock rise as a result. The award for Best Online Casino Promotion went to the Jackpot Factory Group and the designation of Best Slots Casino went to All Slots.

The Best Online Casino Bonus went to English Harbour. The award for Best Online Casino Games was given to Microgaming, which also operates a network of online poker rooms that includes Doyle’s Room, Eurolinx, Poker Host, and Unibet. Microgaming no longer accepts new players from the United States as a result of a decision handed down last month. The award for Best Customer Service went to Club USA Casino.

One award went to PokerStars for the Best Online Poker Room. PokerStars is the market leader in terms of size and hosted a record-setting 250,000 players on Sunday afternoon as part of a bundle of promotions for World Record Week. The online poker room is one day removed from holding a 35,000 player tournament which set the bar for the largest one ever held. In addition, it increased the guarantee of its Sunday Million to $2.5 million and bumped the prize pool of its weekly Sunday Warm-Up to an even $1 million.

According to PokerScout.com, which tracks site traffic, PokerStars is the largest room in terms of the number of cash game players. At the time of writing, it is hosting 35,585 cash game players and has a seven day average of 21,200, although that number includes added traffic as a result of the plethora of promotions held on Sunday. Full Tilt Poker hosts the second largest ring game traffic, with an average of 8,700 players hitting its virtual felts during the previous week. The two marquee online poker sites are followed by the iPoker Network (4,950 cash game players on average over the past seven days), PartyPoker (4,050), the Ongame Network (2,650), Everest Poker (2,400), CEREUS (2,000), Boss Media (1,520), Svenska Spel (1,440), and the Cake Poker Network (1,300).

Online Gambling Insider summed up the process of picking its top industry performers each year: “Choosing our Online Casino Award winners is a daunting task each year, but we take into account player feedback and our own interactions with each gambling site we promote over the course of the year to come up with our list of top performers.”

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