There is no doubt that online poker is in decline compared to 2 or 3 years ago. The Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act of 2006, enacted by an Act of Congress of the US government, was the beginning of the decline as many US citizens were no longer able to gamble online. Many poker sites and networks have either shut down or been swallowed up by other networks. Crypto Loko No Deposit Bonus However, some poker networks have thrived under the Internet Gambling Enforcement Act, with the Ipoker network being a prime example. Many smaller European poker sites soon realized they couldn’t survive without their American players and switched from dying networks to Ipoker . Ipoker has grown from one of the smaller networks to the third largest network in recent years, averaging just under 10,000 cash players at peak European times.

Networks such as Poker Stars

Other networks such as Poker Stars and Full Tilt continue to allow Americans to gamble and have grown to become the largest networks in the last 2 years. Poker Stars has a staggering 37,000 cash players at its peak, while Full Tilt has 16,000. The two largest pre-act poker networks are now in serious decline. Paradise Poker, which used to attract tens of thousands of cash players each day, is now part of the Boss network with several other poker sites that only attract 3400 cash players at peak times. Party Poker’s traffic has also dropped dramatically and they’re only attracting 8000 at peak times.

The future is not looking bright for the small networks and Crypto Logic and Boss have already announced that they will merge in early 2009 which seems like a strange decision to many as they will still be a relatively small network and the Boss software is not so popular with poker players. The Merge network is struggling to establish itself and still only attracts around 300 cash players at peak times. Reports from players suggest that Bodog has had issues with player withdrawals and despite heavy advertising , Bodog has not been as successful as many thought.

Smaller networks that seem to have caught

Two of the smaller networks that seem to have caught on are Betfair and PKR. Betfair is primarily a betting exchange but has successfully expanded into poker and is now well established. PKR has done even better, although many have suggested that PKR would not succeed with its 3D client. Even with state-of-the-art 3D graphics reducing the number of tables a player can play Crypto Loko No Deposit Bonus to 4, PKR is climbing the leaderboard and looking forward to a bright future. Other sites have tried to compete with PKR for a share of the 3D poker market but simply failed because the PKR 3D interface is so good.

However, I’m sure poker is here to stay and while we’re sure to lose more sites throughout 2009, we’ll be left with some networks full of players for years to come!

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