PokerStars Reports Major Growth in 2008

As Reported by Cardplayer.com: "There may be hundreds of online poker sites out there, but PokerStars is beginning to establish itself as online poker’s behemoth.

PokerStars now has
PokerStars Lobby  more than 35 percent of the entire market share in terms of concurrent cash players, according to PokerScout.com owner Dan Stewart.

“That market share is the highest it’s ever been for PokerStars,” said Stewart, who established his site in 2006 to track the number of players playing at each poker site.

There is no easy way to track tournament players or the number of unique players for each site, but PokerScout has been tracking the number of concurrent players for more than two years.

Stewart explains the distinction between unique players and concurrent players.

“If someone’s playing 12 tables, they’ll get counted 12 times,” said Stewart. “That’s because there’s 12 seats filled, and that’s what matters most to the site.”

Online poker saw yet another rise in traffic this past year, with PokerStars leading the pack. PokerScout reports that total cash game traffic increased more than 14 percent in 2008, while PokerStars witnessed a 65 percent increase over 2007. This past week, PokerStars has seen an average of 22,800 cash game players at its cash game tables at any given moment.