PokerScout.com is the leading online poker portal for tracking the volume of players playing poker on the Internet at any given time. Regularly updated throughout the day, PokerScout provides information about how many players are logged into their accounts at the world´s leading online poker sites and networks, and how many of those are playing for cash.
A True Picture of the Market
Publishing the number of cash game players is an important element of the role performed by PokerScout. Many networks and online poker sites often produce misleading statistics about visitors to their site which include those using the play money facilities. With PokerScout, you can see an accurate picture of each site/network´s popularity and how many players are actually putting their money on the tables.
Information in Depth
Each online poker site or network has its own dedicated page, which is constantly updated (every ten minutes) with the total number of players involved in live poker games sorted into the variation of online poker they are playing (for example Omaha/Stud/Badugi etc.). The volumes of traffic and site performance over the last six months are indicated in graph form at the top of each page, whereas a more detailed analysis for the previous two months is published at the foot of each site/network´s page.
Top Names in the Games
If you are the type of poker player who is keen to observe and learn from the pros, the PokerScout home page provides a list of online poker stars currently in action and, further down, a table showing all the high stakes games in progress. These two sections are obviously better populated on Sunday evenings, when most of the online poker sites host their feature tournaments, but quite regularly you will find some sponsored pros playing online – and, if you have an account at that poker site (and the necessary bankroll) you can log in and play with them.
More than a Few Surprises
Whereas nobody will be amazed to find PokerStars at the top of the PokerScout´s list, there are a few surprises among online poker sites which have a high profile yet fail to attract a considerable share of the market. Some of the these high profile poker sites might struggle to fill more than a handful of tables, whereas a few networks you may never have considered have thousands of players online at the most unlikely times of the day.
Don´t Believe the Reviews
There is only one area where PokerScout fails in its accurate reporting on the world of online poker and that is with its poker site reviews. Allowing “players” to write their own reviews of the sites results in two completely opposite opinions – the views of those who have allegedly been sucked one too many times due a fixed RNG and those of apparently super-satisfied clients who are obviously the ones doing the sucking out. Many of the comments in the reviews are ludicrous, and for accurate online poker reviews, you should rely on those which are published on Poker News Report.
PokerScout Summary
PokerScout has been reporting on online traffic ever since 2006 and the “age of UIGEA”. Other than the not too useful poker site reviews, it provides an excellent source of information for those interested in tracking certain games, certain players or the performance of certain websites. Pokerscout does not claim to identify one web site as “the best” – only providing information on which are the biggest. Because of this it’s definitely a site to bookmark!