PokerStars is looking for new poker rooms to join their network
Major industry news now, as the recently formed PokerStars network is actively looking for new online partners to become skins.
PokerStars was once the market leader for a long time, but was overtaken by GGPoker around the time of the pandemic. Since then, it has lost momentum in the online poker traffic rankings and is being hotly pursued by CoinPoker for the global market second-place position.
Last month, it was announced that Betfair, Sky Poker, and Paddy Power Poker would be joining the PokerStars online liquidity from iPoker. Betfair has already joined the PokerStars network, and the other two will be doing so shortly. These three online poker rooms are part of the same Flutter parent group that PokerStars is part of, so it was a natural migration.
Open for business
GGPoker are the current market leader.
Now, on a newly launched website, the PokerStars network is actively pursuing new partners to become skins on the network. Boasting 12 licences across more than 130 countries and more than 3 million active players across those networks.
It appears that any site joining the network would be able to offer the same games and VIP rewards that the main PokerStars liquidity does. This would include things like qualifiers to the European Poker Tour.
At the bottom of the new website, there is a Contact Us page for potential new partners to inquire. There is also a case study for one of the first new partners to join the network, Sisal, who operate on their Italian skin.
It will be interesting to see just how much this new business model will grow the traffic at PokerStars. While they are no longer the market leader, a lot of their brands, like the European Poker Tour and the World Championship of Online Poker, still carry a lot of prestige in the industry.
However, they are currently dwarfed by GGPoker. At the time of writing, according to PokerScout, GGPoker currently has 9,292 active cash game players (a metric which has always been used to measure the size of an online poker room). In contrast, the main global PokerStars has 2,479 and CoinPoker has 2,285. The iPoker network, which Betfair, Sky Poker, and Paddy Power Poker will be leaving, has just 173.
