Ladbrokes Gives Boost to Microgaming Poker
Written by Matt W | Wednesday, April 8th, 2009
Microgaming is the undisputed leader in online casino software, but it never enjoyed the same reputation in online poker. The Microgaming poker network stock fell further after it decided to withdraw from the American market late last year following the bitter Kentucky domain name seizure saga. As a result of that withdrawal Microgaming lost the prestigious Doyle’s Room account. Doyle’s Room has a predominantly American clientele and could not afford to stay with Microgaming.
In the last few months Microgaming had been langushing at around number 15 in the list put out by PokerScout. Then in February 2009 the Ladbrokes Poker shift to Microgaming was made effective. This seems to have done the trick. The network that Microgaming operates exclusively for Ladbrokes and Unibet has drawn as much traffic as all the other Microgaming powered poker rooms put together. This has pushed the Microgaming group of networks to number 8 on the list.
PokerScout is one of the reputed poker traffic tracking sites. The top ten in its list in order of descendance are – PokerStars, Full Tilt Poker, iPoker Network, PartyPoker, Ongame Network, Everest Poker, Cereus Network, Microgaming, Boss Media and Cake Poker Netwok. This is based on the 7 day average traffic. Of the top ten only four accept American players. But the traffic on these four amounts to 63% of the traffic at the top ten networks. PokerStars and Full Tilt Poker, both accepting American players, carry 57% of the traffic at the top ten networks.
The top ten list by PokerScout throws up several interesting facets. Doyle’s Room left Microgaming for Cake Poker. Now Microgaming has left Cake poker behind. Cereus is just a nose ahead of Microgaming and their positions may quite well interchange on a day to day basis. In this battle Cereus has both a major disadvantage and an advantage. Cereus is the combined network of Absolute Poker and Ultimate Bet.
A large section of the online poker community has neither forgotten nor forgiven these two sites for the superuser scandal. This section will not touch Cereus with a ten foot bargepole. On the other hand Cereus is promoted by Phil Hellmuth and Annie Duke, two of the most iconic names in contemporary poker.
Ultimate Bet, which is a part of the Cereus network, is celebrating ten years of its existence with massive promotions and publicity. This includes the “From a Dime to a $10 Million Dream”. Players at Ultimate Bet start at WSOP qualifiers for a buy-in of ten cents.
If any qualifier manages to win the Main Event wearing the Ultimate Bet shirt all along then he or she will get a $10 million deal from Ultimate Bet. To this add the fact that Ultimate Bet has knocked out Full Tilt Poker from the Ultimate Fighting Championship sponsorship and the fact that Annie Duke is making waves at the Celebrity Apprentice reality show and Microgaming has more than a fight on its hands.
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· Written by Matt W · Filed Under Poker News · Comments Off
