Pokerscout: Pokerstars recovered; Full Tilt up; Absolute, Cake, Ultimate Bet summer sufferers

PokerStars has bounced back strongly from the US authorities’ squeeze on poker payment channels, new data from poker website traffic monitoring site PokerScout reveals.

PokerStars’ traffic fell 6% in June due to the asset freeze by federal prosecutors of US poker player accounts, but it was the only major US-facing poker site to increase traffic during the second half of the month, as rivals such as Cake Poker and Cereus Network’s Absolute Poker and Ultimate Bet succumbed to the regular summer downswing in poker activity.

PokerStars’ recovery was predicted by PokerScout owner Dan Stewart two week ago as he pointed out the site had yet to realise the boost of phasing echeque deposits back in.

However Full Tilt was the only US-facing site to finish the turbulent month in a better position than it started, with traffic up 1% on the same point a month earlier.

Neither Full Tilt or Cake Poker, the other operator likely to benefit from Pokerstars’ slow response to the asset freeze and bounced cheques debacle, proved able to build on their strong performance during the first half of the month, when both achieved 3% boost in traffic.

Cake’s traffic fell away dramatically during the second half of the month, to end up 11% down on the start of the month.

Traffic to the Cereus network sites fared little better, falling 12% by month’s end, despite a full recovery from the shock of the payments freeze just two weeks earlier, when traffic was back up to its 1 June level.

However Playtech’s Europe-facing iPoker network also ended the month 8% down on 1 June levels, having been 3% up just two weeks earlier, reflecting a wider seasonal downswing in poker activity.

Stewart said: “Traffic to European sites which weren’t impacted by the seizure and to American sites which were hardly impacted two weeks ago is also substantially down”.

PartyPoker’s ‘Million Dollar Hand’ promotion helped insulate it from the seasonal downturn, boosting site traffic by 19% over the course of the month. However the promotion finished on 25 June, meaning that the site’s July figures are likely to be less positive.

As revealed by EGRmagazine.com earlier this month, PartyPoker and 888 continue to be the most visible poker sites to US internet users despite America’s Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act (UIGEA) internet gambling ban.

As reported this week, investment bank Goldman Sachs predicts that the US will overturn UIGEA to create an online poker and casino market worth up to $12bn, and that PartyGaming and 888 stand to profit most from the US legalisation of egaming.

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