Online poker traffic
Overall online cash game numbers were down for the fourth consecutive week, although this week the market only lost a scant 0.1%. In spite of the overall small loss, 7 out of the 10 top sites were up, with only 3 posting a loss.
Compared to this week last year, the count remains steady once again at down 13%. So with several weeks in a row at this number the market is at least treading water year over year.
The top 10 rankings remain unchanged from last week. The most noteworthy event this week is Bodog’s now pulling up very close to third place iPoker after moving up from fifth to fourth last week. They now sit at 1900 average cash game players to iPoker’s 2000. They are already at an all time high ranking and are threatening to go even higher.
Bodog’s closest competitor among U.S. facing sites is Merge, in eighteenth place with only an average of 575 players. Bodog now has more players than all of its other competitors combined. So Bodog isn’t just maintaining its dominance in this market, it is becoming even more dominant.
Seals With Clubs Goes Down, Gets Reborn
After seeing their head seal, Chairman Brian Micon, take a good clubbing by Nevada Gaming Commission authorities, who raided his home and led him away in handcuffs, this was enough to bring to an end the present incarnation of this site.
It’s probably not such a great idea to run an offshore poker site and live in the United States, but Micon has finally seen the error of this and has now relocated to the much more friendly locale of Antigua.
The price paid here was the company, who was brought down by this, and had to cease operations. Players have until May 5 to request their final withdrawals from the poker site, after which it will have dirt thrown on it.
The good news for bitcoiners is that Seals with Clubs has been brought back to life under the name SwCPoker and is now up and running, and is doing quite well already in terms of traffic. In spite of the name though this is a new site and players must register and deposit anew. However the idea of the site remains very much alive and kicking and will continue on.
Party Poker Launches Some Loyalty
Party Poker is looking to get more aggressive with its loyalty program, and has just made some changes to it which will make it quite a bit easier for their players to move up VIP loyalty levels. The amount of loyalty points isn’t changing, but the requirements for each level has, which is something that should prove quite appealing to their more active players in particular.
In addition, to help launch this new and improved loyalty program, they have also rolled out a short term promotion called the Loyalty Launcher, where in while the promotion runs, players can earn up to 50% more loyalty points than usual.
So far, this all hasn’t had much of an impact at all on Party Poker’s cash traffic numbers, which are up, but only by 5%. However, given that their improvements aren’t just a short term deal, this may provide even bigger and more lasting dividends over time, as the word gets out more and they attract more players from competing sites, at least that’s the hope.
