As U.S. gamblers abandon Pokerstars and other privately owned sites, the remaining Europeans and Asians on those sites may start drifting back to listed rivals PartyGaming and Sportingbet, analysts said.
"PartyGaming previously lost a lot of higher yielding non-U.S. players, who saw higher liquidity on the higher limit tables and tournaments on Pokerstars," said analyst Andrew Lee at Dresdner Kleinwort.
"PokerStars may now start to lose some of these players, given the payment processing restrictions and struggle to stimulate growth," he added. "This could be good for PartyGaming by shifting non-U.S. players back."
Analyst Andrew Lee at Dresdner Kleinwort, has obviously never dealt with both Party Poker and PokerStars as a player.
Once you play at PokerStars, you are never as happy at any other site. They are simply the best. IMHO
Once Party lost their player base, they were burnt toast. The only way they can get that player base back is with the aggressive marketing that they were good at, and bonuses, which their good at.
Beyond that, PokerStars beats them hands down at everything else.