Poker Host Leaving Microgaming
Written by RogerCP | Thursday, February 19th, 2009
Close on the heels of Doyle’s Room leaving the Microgaming poker network comes news that another online poker room is getting ready to make the switch. This time it is Poker Host. The reason for leaving is the same. The online poker room needs a network that will accept American players.
Microgaming stopped accepting new US online poker players after the Kentucky domain name seizure case. Microgaming, not directly being an online gambling operator, was not one of the 141 operators who were named in the case. But during the court cases that followed the State of Kentucky repeatedly bandied Microgaming’s name. This led to Microgaming pulling out of the US online casinos market and its licensees could not accept any new online players. Microgaming’s online poker licensees were particularly affected because they depended a great deal on the growing American online poker market.
Poker Host was one such licensee. Since Microgaming’s pull out it has been telling new American applicants that they were not accepting new American players. Poker News Daily has now reported that the response from Poker Host has shifted a wee bit. Now the customer support at Poker Host says, “Just to avoid misunderstanding, I want to let you know that we’re not accepting new U.S. players at the moment, but we will be pretty soon… Like in one or two weeks at the most. We’re on the Microgaming Network at the moment and the Network is not accepting new U.S. players at all. So, we’re moving from that Network to a new one that accepts U.S. players.” Incidentally Poker Host was one of the domain name holders targeted by Kentucky.
The question that remains unresolved for now is to which poker network is Poker Host moving. Poker Host is not answering that one just yet. All that they are letting out is that the new network is one of the best. One guess is that the new network could be Cake Poker. Cake Poker though is far from the best. PokerScout, the poker room traffic tracking organization puts Cake Poker at number nine, just two notches above Microgaming. Cake Poker has seven day average of 1,660 cash game players and 24-hour peak traffic of 2,868 players. PokerStars, the number one online poker room, has corresponding figures of 29,000 and 43,523. So Cake Poker is nowhere near the best.
The reason why Cake Poker is being named is because Doyle’s Room went there after leaving Microgaming. That shift worked wonders for Doyle’s Room. The average daily traffic has gone up by over 45% since December 2008. Poker Host would be looking for this kind of turn around as well.
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· Written by RogerCP · Filed Under Poker Gossip · Comments Off
