The independent online poker monitor Pokerscout’s latest statistics indicate that April was not a good month for ring game traffic for Pokerstars, with the company taking a substantial 14.7 percent decline, attributed by some observers to it’s 4 percent hike in rake towards the end of March.
Pokerscout notes that player traffic dropped from 17,000 at the end of March to 14,500 at the beginning of May, but that Pokerstars was not the only operator to take a hit…six out of the top ten operators suffered drops in ring game action, one remained flat and only three reported small positive numbers – Bovada-Bodog, Equity Poker and Pokerstars.fr.
Taking hits were PartyPoker, Winamax, Pokerstars.it, MPN, Pokerstars.es, Chico, Merge, Winning Poker Network and Adjarabet, whilst top operators 888Poker and iPoker were not immune either and suffered declines.
In the regulated New Jersey online poker market the novelty of PokerstarsNJ ‘s launch a month back has faded, along with its market lead over WSOP-888Poker, which has shrunk to a mere 10 cash game players. Viewed as a whole, the online poker market in New Jersey eased 11.4 percent compared with March.