Online poker traffic rose another 1.3% this week, the second straight weekly rise. The gains were not evenly distributed, however. Seven of the top 10 tracked sites and networks booked a loss for the week.

This week PokerScout published the first estimates of the newly opened French online poker market. At this early stage, PokerStars.fr and EverestPoker.fr seem to be dominating in France, with PokerStars.fr debuting in ninth place worldwide and EverestPoker.fr settling in at 14th. Preliminary estimates showed the French networks of Ongame and PartyPoker falling outside the top 20.

Overall, the licensed French sites account for approximately 4% of all online poker players worldwide, an impressive start considering that the sites have been open for less than three weeks.

Top Of The Charts

PartyPoker held off iPoker Network to preserve its third place ranking for the third consecutive week, but iPoker narrowed the gap slightly. Player counts for the two networks are now separated by less than 15%. Meanwhile, PokerStars and Full Tilt Poker have held the top two spots for the past 138 weeks.

Movers

IPN edged ahead of Microgaming to take seventh place in the traffic rankings. French site PokerStars.fr entered the ranks at ninth, knocking all of the trailing sites down a notch. The debuts of EverestPoker.fr at 14th, bwin.fr at 22nd and PartyPoker.fr at 24th caused a similar downward shift. PacificPoker took 15th place ahead of Svenska Spel.

Year Over Year

With the inclusion of the new French sites, the worldwide online poker market is growing marginally. According to PokerScout's ACES indicator, online poker traffic is rising at an annual rate of 3%.

Notable gainers:

Merge Gaming Network 90%

Full Tilt Poker 17%

Cereus Network 17%

PokerStars 10%

Notable losers:

iPoker Network 41%

Cake Poker Network 37%

PacificPoker 27%

PartyPoker 20%