by Mario Alfonsi | Published on Dec 1, 2011 | Updated on Dec 1, 201170% of the most prominent poker sites in the world have reported that they have seen a significant drop in traffic over the last few weeks. On a bigger scale, all poker sites in the world have noticed an accumulated decrease in traffic by about .2% over the past week or so.The overall world traffic now is nothing more than a fraction of what it was a year ago. Thanks mostly in part to the US Department of Justice and their actions, worldwide online poker traffic is down almost 30% from this point one year ago. Without Full Tilt and any Cereus networked sites able to accept players, it is no surprise that the industry as a whole is suffering. What is really disheartening is that networks like the IPN and Entraction, who had next to no involvement in Black Friday, have also experienced very noticeable decreases in traffic to their sites.The hope is that, just like the economy, even though it is in a slump now, it is almost inevitably going to rebound. That sounds good on paper, but whether it happens or not is a completely different story altogether.Quite ironically, a site that WAS at the center of the Black Friday fiasco, PokerStars, is noticing a recent gain in traffic. The main impetus behind their slight success is because PokerStars is currently celebrating its 10th anniversary and is offering promotions that are too good to pass up for most players. Both Carbon and Lock poker are continuing their positive streak, as they have ever since Black Friday. Those two sites played the whole situation very well and their main goal was to take poker “refugees” from sites like Full Tilt and PokerStars and convert them into players of their own.Bodog is another site that flourished in the wake of Black Friday. Their year-to-date growth is around 60% and they are slowly moving up the charts, almost gracing the top 10 sites in the world (currently in 12th). It seems as if there is a power shift happening, moving from old, well-known names to new up and coming poker sites who will avoid legal trouble while at the same time offering you an enjoyable playing experience.
