The recent merger of PartyPoker and bWin (the OnGame Poker Network) has created the combination of the #3 and #5 online poker rooms/networks, but the combined traffic of the two sites is still well behind both PokerStars and Full Tilt Poker according to pokerscout.com’s numbers.

PokerScout lists Party Poker’s average player traffic at 3,550 and OnGame Poker’s daily traffic at 2,350 –for a total of 5,900 players. Compare this to Full Tilt Poker’s 13,800 and PokerStars 25,600 daily players. However, the numbers are only part of the story, and as we have seen in the past, once a site starts to grow it usually continues growing because more players bring in more players!

It will be very interesting to see if the initial jump in player traffic brings even more players to the new poker network, and whether a poker network can challenge PokerStars or Full Tilt Poker without accepting US players. Party Poker has already paved the way for a return to the US market should online poker legislation pass, and if they are able to come in with an already large player base they could once again reclaim the top spot in online poker.

Consider the possibility that 50% of a poker room’s traffic comes from the United States, that means whatever player base Party Poker/bWin bring in to the US market will be doubled! And a majority of those new players will be pilfered from the current US-friendly poker sites. The only problem that might keep Party Poker behind Full Tilt and PokerStars is they don’t offer rakeback. So won’t be able to keep up with the Best Poker Rakeback Sites such as Full Tilt for players looking rakeback.

Tags: bwin, Party Poker and Bwin, PartyPoker, PokerStars or Full Tilt Poker, US friendly poker sites

This entry was posted on Thursday, August 5th, 2010 at 12:15 pm and is filed under Poker News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.