GGPoker featured greater cash game players in its sessions in the previous seven days than PokerStars. This is the first time a competitive internet gambling site has overtaken the online poker behemoth since 2006. The seven-day trend line of active cash game players for GGPoker was 5006 as per figures presented by GameIntel, an impartial tracker of casino games traffic since 2006, and only published on the Poker Industry PRO Data website. PokerStars had a score of 4981.

This is the first time that another organization with a concentration on controlled European countries has climbed up the global online poker market since October 2006, when reigning leader Partypoker departed from the United States in the aftermath of UIGEA with competitor PokerStars capturing the crown.

For more than a decade, not a single online poker firm has come anywhere close to defeating the emperor of internet gambling. The last time a provider came close to beating PokerStars was in 2010-2011 when Full Tilt was similarly in magnitude before going broke on Black Friday. Ever since, PokerStars has dominated nearly every market in which it works, frequently accounting for more than two-thirds of all real money cash game hands played every day all across the planet.

Eventually, with the arrival of GGPoker, this started to change. It originally appeared in Asia, but it came to our attention in 2017 that Natural 8, one of its skins, continued to make its way into Europe. In late 2017, GGPoker.com and GGpoker.co.uk, and its own poker rooms, were introduced. For the next four and a half years, its traffic expanded unabated.

GGPoker’s rate has grown in the last two years

Early in 2020, it actually took off, owing to significant product announcements and game-changing cooperation with the World Series of Poker. PRO showcased its steep climb last summer, with substantial support threefold year on year.

Indeed, its rise has been much more remarkable ever since.