The independent online poker monitor Pokerscout reports that last week was a good one for online poker operators, with traffic increasing by five percent – the best performance since June this year.
The top nine poker room and network sites all experienced improved traffic to cash game tables, with French leader Winamax advancing to eighth position at the expense of Bodog.
In trying to explain the upward tick, Pokerscout said that there was cool and damp weather throughout most of Europe as autumn progressed, encouraging indoor activity such as online gambling.
However, traffic to the only two legalised online poker sites in Nevada, albeit on a small scale, also rose as WSOP.com and Ultimate Poker.com battled for local market share.
The monitor reported that WSOP.com appears to catching up to the earlier-launched Ultimate Poker, breaking its own best performance so far on Sunday with 192 poker players at the virtual tables.
Party Poker also seems to have overcome a shaky start to the glitchy launch of its new software, showing an improved 10 percent cash game traffic stat, although it is still chasing Full Tilt and 888Poker.
Despite the good week, when looked at in year-on-year comparative terms, the international poker market is still showing a 9 percent decline.