Lately there’s been talk that Internet poker’s star is fading. True, it’s still the most popular form of online gaming, but it’s slipped a bit in popularity from its mid-2000s heyday, when the game was enjoying an unprecedented comeback and saturating ESPN (even more so than today, that is).
Now, the perception is that online poker’s popularity isn’t as strong as it once was. And there’s a reason why: Big online gaming brands like PartyGaming are reporting less revenue on their poker platforms, and more growth on alternate games like online bingo.
Not so fast
But columnist Chuck Blount sounds a note of doubt about the rumors of online poker’s fading popularity.
“At any set time, the number of players who frequent online poker’s most popular site, Pokerstars.com, will fluctuate from 20,000 to upwards of 60,000 in a 24-hour window,” Blount writes, pointing out that, during the “Sunday Million” tournament, the amount of players can reach 75,000.
Blount goes on the explain that Full Tilt Poker, the world’s second biggest poker site, “averages around 16,400 and consistently receives about half the traffic as PokerStars”.
Those numbers, and that hierarchy, is already pretty well-known to online poker industry observers. But Blount continues: “[N]umbers associated with the enormous popularity of online poker remain constant in the annual $4.8 billion industry,” he explained.
And, as the biggest of the poker sites, PokerStars, approaches its 60 billionth hand dealt (it dealt its 50 billionth in September), the company is also positioning itself to officially enter the U.S. market, with some clever Nevada politicking.
(Although many U.S. poker players play on PokerStars currently, it’s expected that many more would start to do so if the American government officially granted its blessing to the company — and any fears of legality were finally addressed by lawmakers.)
The affiliate angle
So, let the players who visit your poker affiliate site know: Online poker is not dying, it’s thriving. And there’s never been a better chance to win big or play against fresh players that right now.