It is very very unlikely that these sites will pick up much of the slack at all. Where are these sites going to advertise? Are you going to see the Carbon Poker heads up championship on NBC? Much of the popularity has been driven by television and advertising by Stars and Full Tilt.. At this point, it would seem that foreign players are likely to keep their business predominately at Party Poker, Pokerstars, and other bigger more established sites than sites like Bodog and Cake. Maybe I'm wrong, but why would they start depositing on US sites en masse. I would be very surprised if name players like Hellmuth and Negreneau are putting their names on site like Bodog. I just don't see anything that would drive the popularity of poker and deposits on these sites in anywhere near the way that some people like OP think.

Merge running away with it? The biggest still-US-facing site continues its tear with its 7-day moving average jumping from 1440 to 1520 (+80) overnight to Apr. 28.

Now 80 players doesn't sound like much, but it is a big deal when it is the increase int the moving average! Consider that Apr. 28's total number of players has to be 560 (80*7=560) higher than the day that just dropped off of the 7-day moving average (Apr. 20) to produce an average that has increased by 80 overnight. Well, I'd call 560 more players in one week a *blistering* rate of growth. We'll see if it keeps up...in fact maybe I'll keep doing a play by play of the stats here in this thread, so check back.

Bodog is even, while Cake's m.a. fell a bit overnight. Should I bother with Everleaf and Yatahay? Maybe everyone in the US who still wants to play is simply moving to Merge because they're the biggest of the new 3 and it just "makes the most sense".

Thanks to Pokerscout for the #'s...

I don't see your Merge/Bodog/Cake becoming the next "Big Three" for a couple of reasons.

First, payment processors are going to run and hide when it comes to the remaining U. S. facing operations. After seeing their bretheren go down with the Black Friday indictments, they are probably going to think twice before going down that road again. Without a reliable payment processors for cashouts and deposits, the game doesn't even get started.

There's a reason that Merge/Bodog/Cake have been at the bottom of the heap. They do not have the actual physical computer processing power to be able to handle a huge leap of players. If they invest in computerization, IT, customer service and the like, they may have a chance to do it, but I doubt that they are willing to go as far as PS and FTP did.

There is also a lack of reasoning with your number increases on the Merge network. In the two weeks since Black Friday, the former "Big Three" have lost almost 16,000 cash game players. The Merge/Bodog/Cake (and others) alliance have increased their numbers percentage wise, but have only pulled in about 950 players. That is a pretty serious loss of numbers for any business (PokerScout, you're great!)

Why does everyone quote Pokerscout that merge is "growing" to 2k players or so, everytime I open up carbon poker there is 10k-12k players.

That 10k number includes play money.

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOH

How sad. No wonder the senate doesn't care, only 2-3k of us care enough about it to continue playing. .01% of population.....they're like ....meh

it includes all players of real money + play money, pokerscout only includes real money CASH games

I doubt it, although you'd think in the world of black market evolution, they would. But a few factors:

A) It's going to be increasing harder to deposit/withdraw as time goes on. As we learn from Chuck Kidd on QJ, the big sites cut corners to get players a quicker withdrawal process to seperate themselves from competition. And as we learned from Karak, to obv save money. The transaction numbers used by the smaller sites are of a high risk nature, and the banks will less and less honor them. Hell, I've tried 3 methods to deposit on Carbon Poker with TWO banks here; no dice. It's just discouraging, which goes to my next point.

B) The whole news of the shutdown of US online poker has killed the casual fish from depositing. There will still be hungry degens, but the majority will now just take that 50 or 100 they used to put into the big sites, save up, and go to a casino. They are, like the majority of our constituency, misinformed about their options and the news really impacted the entire ecosphere of the poker online economy. The games will just get more regs in them, and the games were nitty on the big sites BEFORE all this happened.

It's like if Galactus of Marvel fame came to Earth not to eat it, but just to take a huge steamy dump all over the planet. It's still there, but will never be the same.

C) The software NEEDS to get better. If I were Bodog, just steal the FTP software. Seriously, you think they have the money to sue you over a patent? I think their lawyers are a little occupied right now. You think that Calvin Arye would even honor that suit?

The other thing that separated the big 2 from the rest was the software was above and beyond. Multitabling on Bodog is like trying to teach a ******ed kid karate. Just unacceptable to use the same software that ESPN uses for their poker client.

D) And within a year, I won't be susprised if the DOJ goes after these sites as well.

Wow, you guys do realise there is a poker world outside the US. Anyone who thinks Merge/Bodog/Cake will become the next big 3 are massively mistaken. Sure they will go up but they will have trouble getting anywhere near the top 4 or 5 never mind top 3.

Merge went from 20 something to the top 10 pretty rapidly. Why do you think PS and FTP were so much larger than all others? I'm not saying Merge will get anywhere near there, but I think, barring any major new developments, they will be in the Party range within 3-6 months.

I think we still have to see what happens when everyone gets their money from PS/FTP/UB. There was a big increase in traffic on Merge and nobody has their money yet. You never know! Don't under estimate the casual U.S. gambling public. Historically, prohibition hasn't worked.

Prohibition will NEVER work.

Humans gonna human.

No way, a decent %age of U.S. players will quit online and most of those that continue will be with smaller rolls. I don't think these companies will see more than 15-20% of the money that U.S. players had on Stars/Tilt/UB. They'll definitely have an influx of players, but they won't be the next pokerstars.

If you look at merges current traffic it pretty much is alreayd in the top 4 although averages over the week put it at 10. Let's get the merger party started!

I think the non-Americans on that site are going to get the hell off when it continues to be flooded with US regs. You will end up with very few fish and just solid grinders.
It seems extremely short sighted to allow Americans online, it almost offends me because if I play there, there is a risk my money will become locked up if the DOJ makes a move.

They should focus on the non-US market, instead of trying to scoop up ex-FTP and ex-Stars players. Until online poker is regulated in the US, I won't play on any site taking American players.

Well, I guess I was kinda correct with one of my predictions in the origin post for this thread.

http://www.pokernewsdaily.com/evelyn...th-bodog-18970

Evelyn's not a "big name" -- and it's not even a "him". Also, she's a Canuck; I was honestly expecting an American, but I think she'll be an asset to growing traffic for them from all North Americans long term (easy on the eyes doesn't hurt either). She fits the brand. I think this was a smart move on the part of Bodog...making waves, making people notice them again? Throw in a software revamp to something close what we came to expect on "good" sites like Stars and Tilt and they could be the one to watch -- they're savvy in their marketing (which is produced in North America -- Vancouver, I believe, by their marketing arm) and they presumably know the North American market well. Don't really wanna talk about it, but they have this other "arm" too which bring in steady cash for them...plus that same arm bring in fish to the poker tables. This arm's cashflow can help drive the marketing machine to build the poker side for them. This "arm" may give them an advantage in knowing how to pick good, safe payment processors too.

Overnight change of the 7-day avg. of real money players for Apr. 29th along with some commentary:

Merge: 1540 (+20) plenty of growth still this last week, I hope it's not waning
Bodog: 890 ( +0) some growth lately (Evelyn's impact won't be instant)
Cake: 730 (+0) not too much growth

The non american regs will gtfo. The fish will continue to be fish. Games will still suck but at least Americans will have a place to play.

Lol at focusing on the non US market. Without the US market, Merge would've gone under a long time ago.

BoDog is-and always will be--small timers for poker. They've done everything to make their site casual-player-only except say "We don't want pros here killing our sport-bettors bankrolls".

I'd love for their poker room take a step up, but it won't happen. Their market plan is to keep poker 2nd to the sport book.

I can guarantee you that the reason for low traffic on those sites is not physical computer processing power. Jesus Christ that's stupid.

They should invest in "computerization"? Man, they would pay big bucks for your high class consulting.

Merge network will win hands down out of the 3 listed, but it won't ever get near Stars or even FTP traffic.

US market is small compared to the rest of the world. Don't get me wrong it's big considering the total population vs number of people playing poker online, but you missing the point that its US 310mill ppl vs 7 bill world wide.

If a random site could win it will be zynga or some google type of name that would own biggest % of Chinese market.

Maso777-if you learned anything..your money would still be safe even after the shut down so yeah

yea, many people just think that as long as the sites do not use US payment processors, they will be fine. Many of the sites now are probably not using US payment processors.

Maybe we also be a little bit wary of ones that show a charge from some other type of store, something that is misleading.

Bodog has absolutely no chance IMO as compared to the others it's VIP program is practically insulting.

Completely agree with OP. It's a classic case of supply and demand. Need I remind anyone of Full Tilt's numbers prior to Party pulling of the US. Personally I would love to see Merge, under the guise of Carbon take in a decent amount of US traffic. I prefer their software to Bodog and Cake, the rabbit hunt feature is Uber Tilt