PokerStars Sets Two Traffic Records on Same Day

The Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act (UIGEA), was supposed to weed online gambling out from the US market. Ironically, all its done is force out the publicly traded companies and allowed the leading privately held online poker rooms to double and in some cases near triple in size.

This is evident by the fact that this past weekend PokerStars set two new records both involving the most simultaneous players ever at a single online poker site.

Rarely missing an opportunity to brag, PokerStars posted the following message on the news page of their software this morning.

PokerStars Hits 150,000 simultaneous players

Sunday afternoon, PokerStars says “150,000 players at its tables at the very same time, a first for any online poker site in history.” It was the perfect way to cap off another fantastic year here. For more on all that was 2007, visit the 20007 PokerStars Year in Review. Happy New Year!

The second record PokerStars broke happened on the same day. According to PokerScout.com on December 30, 2007, there were 22,293 real money ring game players which shattered a record set three days prior of 20,386 players. This marked the first times an online poker room ever had more than 20,000 ring game players playing simultaneously. The previous industry leader, PartyPoker.com, had an all time high of 16,960 prior to leaving the American market.

It’s hard not to find it ironic, that all the UIGEA has accomplished so far, is to help fuel privately owned gambling companies while forcing out publicly traded companies. The irony is that one of the bills motives was to protect players from a shady unregulated industry and yet companies who have the most to be accountable are the publicly traded ones.

In any case, its no accident that PokerStars is setting these records. Their company has a long time spotless track record, which has gone a long way in earning the trust of most online poker players and the industry as a whole.