I\’m not sure if the technical definition of decimation is to reduce something by 10 percent, or to 10 percent of what it once was. Regardless … I was just checkin\’ out some poker-site traffic graphs the other day (what, you don\’t check out poker-site traffic graphs?) and found a rather interesting unscientific visual representation of the industry, and the scale by which it\’s been reduced since late 2006:
First, we see American traffic to FullTiltPoker.com. Interesting … they apparently did a good job of growing in the aftermath of the UIGEA — or at least regaining what they lost — and have stayed relatively steady, with hints of slight growth, in the past two years.
Now we see how Full Tilt compares to PokerStars.com. Again, this is not scientific, and it only represents a sampling of web traffic, not on-the-table real-money action … though we can only presume the two correlate.
Now add PartyPoker to the mix, which, as we all know, pulled out of the US, and … wow … 75.6 million vs. 1.4 million … I think we get a clearer picture of just how much was lost, and perhaps, how much stands to be gained.
