Merge Benfits From New Sites

160 percent boost to liquidity The Merge Poker Network has benefitted significantly from the migration of Sportsbook.com and Players Only.com, with the independent online poker stats site Pokerscout.com reporting a traffic boost of some 160 percent. In its weekly summary, Pokerscout.com comments: "The big news of the week was the migration of several sites from Cake Poker Network to Merge Gaming Network. Since the migration on Thursday, Cake network traffic is down 11 percent. The impact on the smaller Merge network was much more profound, however." On the day of the migration, cash game traffic climbed 160 percent according to Pokerscout numbers, with Merge hosting 381 players, but once Sportsbook and Players Only arrived this soared to 996 players. And as at April 23rd when InfoPowa went to press, Pokerscout reported that there were 457 cash game players in action, with a 24 hour peak of 853 and a 7 day average of 530. One delighted poker room exec on Merge revealed that the daily ring rate had climbed 100 percent, and that the boost to tournament rake was double that. Conversely, Cake Poker's peak traffic took a 16 percent hit on the day after Sportbook and Players Only left, although it has reportedly rebounded a little since then and is now around 11 percent below its pre-migration levels. Pokerscout's useful Year over Year summary notes that the global internet poker market continues to grow at an annual rate of 12 percent, with notable "gainers" listed as Full Tilt Poker ( up 34 percent); Betfair (up 33 percent); PokerStars (up 27 percent); and Boss Media's International Poker Network (up 20 percent). Companies flagged as faring less well include Playtech's iPoker Network (down 33 percent); Party Poker (down 16 percent) and Pacific Poker (down 10 percent). Pokerstars remained the one to beat in Pokerscout's 23rd April stats, with 18 609 cash game players, a 24 hour peak of 43 757 players and a 7 day average of 28 800 players. Full Tilt continues to chase the leader with 10 169 cash game players, a 24 hour peak of 21 724 players and a 7 day average of 14 800 players. There's a wide gap between the two industry leaders and the next competitor, which is Party Poker with 2 704 cash game players, a 24 hour peak of 8 002 players and a 24 hour average of 4 500 players. Currently trailing Party Poker are Playtech's iPoker and Ongame.