PartyPoker traffic slides despite Zynga launch
Network falls behind iPoker one week after ZyngaPlusPoker goes live.
PartyPoker has seen its weekly average traffic fall in the Pokerscout cash game rankings in the week since ZyngaPlusPoker went live.
The network – which also counts players from brands such as bwin and World Poker Tour in its liquidity pool – has fallen behind Playtech’s iPoker network and now sits level with Full Tilt Poker.
These sites also share liquidity with Danske Spil, which entered a supplier agreement with bwin.party in 2010, similar to that agreed by Zynga last October.
It has seen its seven-day average cash game players drop to 3,000 from 3,150 on the day ZyngaPlusPoker went live for players in the United Kingdom, which equates to a decline of 4.8% week-on-week.
However its 24-hour peak of 5,446 players puts it above both Full Tilt – which had dropped to fourth last month – and iPoker.
Zynga is still yet to launch a real-money offering on Facebook, though last November’s amendments to the operator’s contract with the social network allows for such a launch in the future.
The UK market accounts for 3.1% of traffic to the operator’s free-to-play Texas Hold’Em Poker app on Facebook, according to analytics firm metricsmonk.
ZyngaPlusPoker went live last Wednesday under bwin.party’s Gibraltar egaming licence, following a partnership agreed last year.
The poker launch was accompanied by the rollout of ZyngaPlusCasino, which includes FarmVille-branded slots among a portfolio of more than 160 slots and a selection of table games.
“Our long term vision is to offer our players the next generation of real money games on multiple platforms in regulated markets worldwide,” Barry Cottle, Zynga’s chief revenue officer, said following the launch.
A spokesman for bwin.party declined to comment when contacted by eGaming Review.