It was another down week for online poker cash games last week – the sixth straight – but it was oh, so close to a turnaround. With just a half percent drop in traffic, according to PokerScout.com, the industry nearly got a respite from its annual season slump.
In its Weekly Online Poker Traffic Update, PokerScout says that of the top ten sites and networks, six moved downward, while four ticked up. They all also stayed in the same positions. Here is what the top ten looks like right now, Tuesday morning ET:
PokerStars – 16,000 cash game players (seven-day average)
888poker – 2,200 cash game players
Bodog – 1,700 cash game players
iPoker – 1,600 cash game players
partypoker – 1,200 cash game players
PokerStars.it – 1,200 cash game players
Full Tilt Poker – 1,150 cash game players
Winamax.fr – 1,000 cash game players
PokerStars.es – 850 cash game players
PokerStars.fr – 800 cash game players
For those who have taken note of PokerScout’s rankings over the past year or so, it is really obvious, just at a glance, how much traffic has declined recently. PokerStars, while still dominating the industry, was up over 20,000 players not all that long ago and was still at 18,000-18,500 very recently. Now at 16,000 players, its traffic is as low as it has been in quite some time. Then, at the bottom end of the spectrum, two sites in the top ten have well under 1,000 players; it used to be that we could expect to see everyone in the top ten at least in the four-figure range.
WSOP.com in Nevada is currently sitting at 170 cash game players, pretty standard for the site of late. PokerScout notes that it should see its cash game traffic jump significantly this summer, bucking the normal trend of sites declining during warm weather months as players spend more time outside and less time in front of their computers. The World Series of Poker begins this week, which means thousands of poker players, plus their families and friends, will be flocking to Las Vegas for a month and a half to compete in any number of live events.
The influx of visitors to Nevada would naturally help boost WSOP.com’s traffic, but a couple changes this year should help even more. First, World Series officials are allowing players to play online while they are sitting at the live tables. While I can’t imagine multi-tasking like this myself, there are going to be plenty of people who will want to fill the time in between live hands, so playing in some online cash games could be a fun, easy way to do this. Second, the Nevada Gaming Control Board has lifted the one account per IP address restriction from WSOP.com, so players throughout the Rio, at hotels around Vegas, and in rental homes in the area will be able to login much easier. And third, with more low buy-in events at the WSOP (“low” being $500 to $1,500, so it’s all relative) and a new, online bracelet event, the WSOP is catering a bit more to the lower-to-mid stakes players. Because it is easier to find affordable games online (you can’t play in 50-cent live games), these are the exact players who may enjoy a few casual games on the internet when not playing live at the Rio.
Of course, once the WSOP ends, WSOP.com’s traffic will retreat, but there is always a chance that some local customers are retained, so even a mostly temporary jump could be beneficial for the long-term.
