This post will take a quick look at some of the more popular online poker betting sites and see just how many players are playing cash games or tournaments online at peak hours.  The more players playing at the poker room, the more options you as a player will have for game variety, stake and tournament size.  Poker Scout is a great tool to see how much traffic each online poker room had on any given day.

The biggest three online poker rooms are PokerStars, Bovada and Party Poker, so we will take a look at these three first.

PokerStars

PokerStars averages around 30,400 cash game players online at any given time during the day.  At peak hours the cash game traffic can get up close to 50,000 people online.  On top of these cash game players there are usually around 180,000 tournament players playing in about 8000 PokerStars tournaments at any given time during the day.  PokerStars has continued to increase its player base over the past month and it looks to continue to grow into the future.

Bovada

Bovada, on the other hand, usually has around 30,000 total players online, which includes an average of about 8,000 cash game players and 22,000 tourney players.  Over the last 6 months Bovada has grown by a greater percentage than PokerStars and looks to grab a larger marketshare from PokerStars in the future.  The development of sports betting and 3d casino action by Bovada will likely grab more of PokerStars players over time.

Party Poker

The next biggest online poker room is Party Poker, but there is a huge drop off from the big two players.  Party Poker averages around 20,000 total players online at a given time and about 5,000 of these players enjoy cash games.  Party has seen a slight increase in players over the past six months, but this is levelling off.  Party Poker seems to be becoming just another one of the smaller poker rooms that can’t compete with the big two.

Juicy Stakes

Juicy Stakes shares players with Cake and Lock Poker and are quickly growing together and their merge has allowed for more games on the Revolution network that they are apart of.  This in turn will continue to bring in more players looking for an alternative to Full Tilt and PokerStars.  The network currently has about 11,000 players online at a time with 2,500 of these being cash game players.  Time will tell if these poker rooms can play fair and gain a larger market share from the top rooms.

Building your bankroll can be greatly helped by clearing online poker bonuses at various websites.  These big 5 sites are great options for those of you interested in building your bankroll through bonuses because there are lots of games to be played and the bonuses are actually very player friendly.