Stars leads Gaming Edge poker scorecard
Operator leads in 8 of the 13 categories on the latest poker scorecard released by the egaming consultancy.
Egaming consultancy site Gaming Edge Associates has today launched the second version of its Poker Edge online poker scorecard, with Pokerstars leading in 8 of the 13 categories covered.
The Isle of Man-based operator holds a strong lead over main rival Full Tilt, whose second place ranking was calculated before the suspension of its Alderney and France licences last month.
Despite the impact of those suspensions, Gaming Edge partner Ben Fried (pictured) explained that if Full Tilt’s product went live again tomorrow “it would still rank at number two”.
“Indeed, [it is] likely that if they did not make any updates for a year (and they were live for testing in November 2011), that they would still rank in the top five. Stars and Tilt are a long way in front,” he added.
Other sites or networks to impress include Merge, described by the consultancy as the network to have gained most over the most categories, and 888’s B2B network Dragonfish.
One new entrant to the scorecard is Zynga, and “ despite the free-to-play Facebook poker operator sits 17th of the 17 players assessed by Gaming Edge “ former Betfair head of poker Fried told eGaming Review: “We think that rating the world’s most liquid poker site is a good comparison for others,” adding that “Purely for the fact that they don’t do real money play means that they are an interesting test case.”
The 13 categories used in the Poker Edge scorecard include payments, responsible gaming and games offered, although player liquidity is not a factor in determining which operator or network receives the highest overall score.
Pokerstars leads the way with a score of just over 80%, while the highest pure network is fifth-placed Microgaming with a percentage rating in the high 60s. Zynga’s score is below 25%.
When asked about Microgaming’s continued high ranking, Fried said: “I think consistent investment is the key here. Microgaming have been investing, similar to Dragonfish/888 for a long period of time and the product shows that.”
He recognised that Entraction – recently taken over by IGT – scored poorly (coming in 15th out of 17) attributing this to the fact that: “Entraction probably have not had the consistent focus and budget to improve. The IGT deal should change that.”
For more information on the scorecard click here.