Full Tilt Poker Overtakes Party Poker in Crucial Online Poker Market

Saturday January 05, 2008

Full Tilt Poker, which still accepts US customers, has overtaken Party Poker this week to start the New Year on the right foot. Real cash players came in just shy of 10,000 over a 24 hour period average while the peak just narrowly beat out Party, which has been struggling to gain more customers outside the US since leaving that market just over a year ago.

Poker Stars continues to lead the pack with double the number of players as Full Tilt Poker.

Poker Stars hit an interesting milestone of its own this past week. It was the first online poker room to hit 20,000 simultaneous real money ring game players.

Party Poker is also facing increased competition from other online poker ventures. Both the Ongame and Playtech iPoker networks are breathing down Party's back in the international markets.

Among the remaining top 5 US-facing poker rooms, Ultimate Bet, Absolute Poker and Bodog Poker are promising more aggressive advertising over the next year and have expressed their long term commitment to Gambling911 in helping them accomplish this feat.

Ultimate Bet and Absolute Poker are sister poker sites that run independently. Combined, they would rank as the 6th largest online poker venture in the world behind Poker Stars, Full Tilt Plker, Party Poker, Ongame and iPoker.

Bodog Poker is promising more aggressive advertising, a boost in the European market and a 110% sign up bonus for new online poker players.

Bodog Poker has been criticized for having poor celebrity player endorsements such as David Williams, who has fallen off the radar in recent months. Bodog was the talk of the poker world last year following a win by its player, Jamie Gold, in last year's World Series of Poker. They would later sever ties with Gold.

Absolute encountered a setback this autumn after an "insider" was found to be reading player hole cards in big money tournaments. Absolute Poker would later refund everyone who participated in the suspect tournaments while ridding itself of the unscrupulous employee.