Online Poker Traffic Report August 2026: Global Rankings and Trends

GGPoker’s tournament lead over Winamax narrowed from 2.09x to 1.50x in a single month. PokerStars has retaken second place in cash games from CoinPoker. Nineteen of the 28 networks reporting cash data grew on the 30-day window, against six in July.

This report tracks online poker traffic across 36 networks spanning 13 player pools using data sourced from SharkScope Analytics, accessed via Poker Industry PRO. Rankings cover cash game players and tournament entries separately, with trends measured across three timeframes and the full dataset refreshed every month.

The sections below cover the August 2026 key findings, global market overview, separate cash game and tournament rankings, trend analysis across three timeframes, traffic breakdowns by market and by parent operator, and full methodology.

Key Findings

All figures below are sourced from SharkScope Analytics via Poker Industry PRO unless otherwise noted. Rankings use the 30-day trailing average. Trend percentages are PRO’s network-level figures for the 7-day, 30-day, and 90-day windows, stacked here to separate seasonal noise from structural shifts.

The market bounced this month, but it bounced off July’s floor rather than back to its mid-May level. Nineteen of the 28 networks reporting cash data grew, and total tracked cash traffic is up 4.3% on last month. Look at the 90-day column and only six of those 28 sit above where they were in mid-May.

The number that matters for grinders is Winamax. It added 74,203 daily tournament entries in a month while GGPoker lost 73,173, closing the gap between them by 147,376. If you play tournaments and can access the French and Spanish pool, that is where the fields have grown.

Global Market Overview

International player pools dominate global cash game traffic, accounting for approximately 57% of all tracked cash game players. European pools (Southern European, Italian, and Austrian and Finnish networks) contribute roughly 25%. US regulated, Ontarian, offshore, crypto, sweepstakes, and Asian markets combine for the remaining 18%.

These percentages use a combined basis totalling 33,547 cash players. The seven segments in PRO’s heatmap carry PRO’s own pool-level totals, while the crypto, Asian, and Austrian and Finnish figures are summed from individually ranked networks, because PRO publishes no heatmap total for those three pools.

That combined total is larger than the 21,784 quoted elsewhere in this report, which is the sum of the 28 networks PRO ranks individually. Every percentage share in this report uses the 33,547 basis.

The table below shows cash game player counts and 30-day trends across the seven market segments tracked in the PRO heatmap. The crypto, Asian, and Austrian and Finnish pools are tracked as individual networks and covered in the market breakdown sections below.

Four of the seven segments grew on the 30-day window, the Italian segment was flat, and only US regulated and sweepstakes declined. The International segment’s 19,241 players represent more cash game traffic than the six other heatmap segments combined, which total 11,261, so its 4.6% gain moves the global number further than any other segment’s percentage change.

For how crypto is reshaping the broader gambling market beyond poker, see our Crypto Casino Market Report, which tracks $46B in onchain deposit volume across 41 operators.

At the top of the cash table, 30-day averages sit close to their 90-day equivalents: GGPoker 9,567 against 9,760, PokerStars 2,198 against 2,075, and CoinPoker 2,016 against 2,033. Tournament entries at the two largest networks moved in opposite directions against the same baseline. GGPoker’s 576,212 daily entries sit below a 90-day average of 600,062, while Winamax’s 384,359 sit above 356,605.

Cash Game Traffic Rankings

The table below ranks every network that reported cash game data to SharkScope in August 2026, sorted by the 30-day average of concurrent players. This is the most direct measure of which poker rooms are the busiest for real-money cash games in 2026. Networks that do not report cash figures (WPT Global, WPN, Global Poker, and others) are excluded here and appear in the tournament rankings section.

The three trend columns are PRO’s network-level figures for each window and are not specific to cash game traffic.

The top five networks account for roughly three quarters of all tracked cash game players. Below #5 iPoker (1,160), no network exceeds 700 concurrent players, marking a clear divide between the top tier and the rest of the table.

Tournament Traffic Rankings

The table below is the full online poker room rankings by tournament traffic for August 2026, covering all 36 tracked networks sorted by daily MTT entries (30-day average). Eight networks that do not report cash game data appear here for the first time, including WPT Global, WPN, and Global Poker. The three trend columns are PRO’s network-level figures for each window and are not specific to tournament traffic.

GGPoker’s 576,212 daily entries still exceed the next two networks combined (Winamax 384,359 + PokerStars 156,452 = 540,811), but no longer the next three, which reach 632,563 once WPT Global is added. In July the same comparison cleared the next three with room to spare. Below the top three, the sharpest fall is between #13 QQPK (38,565) and #14 888poker Italy (18,399), where daily entries more than halve.

The most notable shift between the two tables is 888poker. It ranks #18 in cash games with just 195 concurrent players but climbs to #5 in tournaments with 65,889 daily MTT entries. PartyPoker follows the same pattern at #22 in cash (76 players) but #7 in tournaments (56,979 entries), confirming both networks are fundamentally tournament products.

WPT Global (#4 with 91,752 daily entries), WPN (#8 with 55,636), and Global Poker (#17 with 12,193) appear only in this table because they do not report cash game figures to SharkScope. Stretch Network and Pokerbet ZA show “n/a” on the 90-day window, indicating they are new to tracking. Peoples Network declines across all three timeframes at -1.6%, -15.9% and -31.6%, one of seven networks negative on every window.

Online Poker Traffic Trends

This section uses three timeframe comparisons (7-day, 30-day, 90-day) to separate seasonal noise from structural shifts. Short-term dips driven by holidays or series endings look very different from long-term decline when all three windows are stacked side by side.

Overall Market Direction

Is online poker growing or declining in 2026? The answer depends entirely on which timeframe you examine. On the 30-day window the market grew: 19 of 28 cash game networks posted positive trends, four of the seven heatmap segments expanded, and total tracked cash players rose from 20,885 to 21,784.

The 90-day window tells a different story. Only 6 of 28 cash game networks are positive over that period, and among the four largest only CoinPoker is, at +22.7%, against GGPoker at -0.8%, PokerStars at -15.0% and Winamax at -12.6%. That window compares current traffic against mid-May, which fell between PokerStars’ SCOOP in March and the start of the World Series of Poker on 26 May, so it is not measuring against a series peak.

The summer’s series volume sits inside the 90-day window rather than at its edge. The live World Series of Poker ran from 26 May to 15 July and the WSOP Online bracelet series from 30 May to 14 July, both finishing as this month’s 30-day window opened. August therefore carries almost none of that volume while being measured against a mid-May starting point that came before it.

The two windows are not contradicting each other. Traffic is above where it stood in mid-July and below where it stood in mid-May, which is what a recovery from a summer trough looks like before it regains the earlier level. One month of growth is not a trend, and the September data will show which of the two windows was the better guide.

Momentum Shifts: 7-Day vs 30-Day vs 90-Day

The table below highlights seven networks where the three timeframes tell a divergent or notable story. A network growing on the 30-day window but negative on 90-day has recovered from the July trough without returning to its mid-May level, while a network declining across all three is in structural trouble. The “Signal” column gives a one-phrase interpretation.

Stake Poker is the one row carried over from July. Last month’s edition called its rebound a bounce off the floor rather than a trend reversal, and with all three windows now positive and cash players up from 173 to 208, that call has been settled the other way.

WSOP Online is the most striking row in the table. Its -16.9% on the 30-day window is the steepest decline of all 36 networks, yet it is positive on both the 7-day and the 90-day windows. That combination points to a series schedule unwinding rather than to players leaving.

Key Movers This Month

GGPoker remains the largest network on both metrics, but its lead narrowed on both. Cash players slipped from 9,726 to 9,567 and daily tournament entries fell from 649,385 to 576,212. Against the next four cash networks combined, its lead shrank from 3,680 players to 2,840.

The network reported passing 900,000 concurrent connected users on 3 May 2026, during the opening day of its $300M GG World Festival, having first crossed 500,000 in September 2025. That figure counts every player logged into the platform, not occupied cash seats.

PRO recorded 9,476 concurrent cash seats at GGPoker on the same day, so the two figures measure different things and are not comparable. Monthly promotional spend sits between $15M and $17M, with May 2026 reported at $17M.

The entry decline tracks the summer calendar. The live World Series of Poker ran from 26 May to 15 July, with GGPoker running qualifiers into it, so the 90-day average of 600,062 daily entries carries that volume while the 30-day figure of 576,212 begins on the day the series ended.

Winamax is the largest single movement in the dataset this month. Daily tournament entries rose from 310,156 to 384,359, an increase of 74,203, while cash players rose from 1,014 to 1,353. It remains the #2 tournament network globally despite serving only France and Spain.

The traffic data does not show what drove the increase. Winamax is negative on the 7-day window at -1.3% and sits 12.6% below where it stood 90 days ago, so this is a recovery inside a longer decline rather than a breakout. Its 30-day average of 384,359 entries sits above its 90-day average of 356,605, which confirms the gain is recent.

WSOP Online swung from the strongest 30-day trend in July’s dataset at +14.2% to the steepest decline of all 36 networks at -16.9%, a move of 31.1 points. Cash players fell from 226 to 203 and daily entries from 14,580 to 10,828. The 2026 WSOP Online bracelet series ran from 30 May to 14 July across Nevada, New Jersey, Michigan and Pennsylvania, so July’s edition captured the closing weeks of it and this one contains none of it.

That timing also explains the split across windows. WSOP Online is positive on the 7-day window at +6.1% and on the 90-day window at +9.6%, and the 90-day comparison point of mid-May sits before the series began. The network is holding above its pre-series level rather than losing players.

As of August 2026, WSOP Online still runs on 888poker’s software platform. The software agreement between Caesars and Evoke (888’s parent company) expires this year, but no migration has been announced and there is no public evidence that a transition is imminent.

PokerStars retook second place in cash games, adding 272 players to reach 2,198 on the 30-day average. Its tournament entries rose from 154,161 to 156,452. Both sit against a network trend of -15.0% on the 90-day window, so the recovery is measured from July rather than from mid-May.

PokerStars exited Poland, Latvia, Japan, and Sri Lanka in 2025, costing an estimated 7% of traffic, and combined SCOOP/WCOOP guarantees dropped from $80M to an estimated $60M to $65M.

The FanDuel migration is no longer pending. The US business moved on 1 April 2026, merging Michigan, New Jersey and Pennsylvania into a single pool that PRO now tracks as FanDuel Poker, and the legacy PokerStars Ontario platform closed on 7 May 2026. The Ontario pool carries a 64.6% decline on the 90-day window, though the traffic data alone does not show how much of that the platform change accounts for.

Traffic by Market

The sections above rank networks individually. This section groups them by player pool and parent operator, revealing which markets and companies control the most poker traffic in 2026. Each market has different regulatory dynamics, player demographics, and seasonal patterns.

International

The International pool is the largest by every measure: 19,241 cash game players and roughly 1.02 million daily MTT entries across eight tracked networks. GGPoker accounts for just under half of the pool’s cash traffic and 56% of its tournament entries. The heatmap total covers rooms whose cash figures PRO does not publish separately, including WPT Global and Stretch Network. Six of the eight tracked International networks report cash figures and they sum to 13,404 players rather than 19,241.

The pool grew 4.6% on the 30-day window, but its three largest networks are all negative on 90-day: GGPoker at -0.8%, PokerStars at -15.0% and iPoker at -7.4%. PokerStars exited Poland, Latvia, Japan, and Sri Lanka in 2025, costing an estimated 7% of its International pool traffic. 888poker (195 cash players, up 3.4% on 30-day) and PartyPoker (76 cash players, up 5.3%) both added cash traffic this month after shrinking through July, though both remain far larger as tournament products.

US Regulated

The US regulated market has gone from the only growing heatmap segment to the steepest decliner, falling 5.2% on the 30-day window. WSOP Online drove the move in both directions, swinging from +14.2% in July to -16.9% this month after its online bracelet series finished on 14 July, the day before this window opens. Four operators serve the regulated US multi-state market, with a combined 791 cash game players and 31,898 daily MTT entries.

The entire US regulated poker market accounts for just 2.4% of global cash game traffic. Its heatmap total of 808 players sits within 17 of the four networks above, making this the one segment where nearly every cash seat is individually ranked. BetMGM Poker posted the strongest 30-day trend of the four at +8.4%, with BetRivers Poker also positive at +1.4%.

Pennsylvania’s MSIGA entry (April 2025) connected four states for the first time, and the immediate 20% revenue lift at WSOP suggests further state additions could move the needle.

European

The Southern European segment holds 6,295 cash game players, roughly 19% of global cash traffic, and posted the strongest 30-day gain of any heatmap segment at +7.5%. Winamax dominates it with 1,353 cash players and 384,359 daily MTT entries, making it the #2 tournament network globally despite serving only France and Spain. Just 2,327 of those 6,295 players sit on networks PRO ranks individually, so nearly two thirds of the segment is on rooms visible only in the heatmap total.

July’s holiday compression reversed. Winamax added 339 cash players over the month, though it remains 12.6% below where it stood 90 days ago. PokerStars Europe (601 cash, down 3.4% on 30-day) and iPoker Europe (327 cash, up 7.4%) sit further below their mid-May levels still, at -13.4% and -13.8% on the 90-day window.

iPoker Austria and Finland is the fifth European network tracked, holding 337 cash players and growing 6.9% on the 30-day window. PRO publishes no heatmap total for its pool, so it is described here but excluded from the segment percentage above.

Italian

Italy operates as a ring-fenced market with four tracked networks: PokerStars Italy (654 cash players), iPoker Italy (441), 888poker Italy (55), and Peoples Network (no cash data, 5,395 daily MTT entries). The combined Italian segment holds 1,645 cash players and was flat on the 30-day window at 0%, the only segment neither growing nor declining. The three networks reporting cash account for 1,150 of that total, with the balance on Peoples Network and other rooms whose cash figures PRO does not publish.

All three Italian cash networks sit well below their mid-May levels on the 90-day window: PokerStars Italy at -12.9%, iPoker Italy at -24.3% and 888poker Italy at -11.1%. Peoples Network is negative on all three timeframes and is the weakest of the four on both the 30-day and 90-day windows. PokerStars Italy remains the dominant operator in this market by both cash players and tournament entries.

Asian

QQPK (QQPoker network) is the only Asian pool tracked by SharkScope, with 692 cash game players and 38,565 daily MTT entries. It is one of only three networks growing across all three timeframes: +2.1% on 7-day, +0.8% on 30-day, and +19.6% on 90-day. That 90-day figure is the strongest of the three, ahead of Stake Poker at +7.6% and GGPoker Ontario at +6.1%.

The Asian segment appears artificially small in this dataset. India’s nationwide ban on real-money gaming removed one of the world’s largest ring-fenced poker markets, and PokerBaazi, previously India’s leading operator, pivoted to a social model. The result is that “Asian poker traffic” as tracked by SharkScope is effectively one network serving a single region.

Offshore

The Offshore segment covers US-facing networks operating without local US licenses. Three networks are tracked: WPN (55,636 daily MTT entries, no cash data), Chico Poker Network (274 cash players, 11,335 MTT entries), and PaiWangLuo (26 cash players, 13,799 MTT entries). The heatmap total for the US Offshore pool is 1,413 cash players (up 4.8% on 30-day), of which only 300 sit on networks with published cash figures.

That gap matters this month. Both networks with published cash figures are negative on all three windows, Chico at -3.8%, -3.8% and -11.5%, and PaiWangLuo at -3.7%, -0.2% and -1.2%, yet the segment grew 4.8%. WPN reports no cash data to SharkScope, so most of this segment’s cash traffic, and whatever drove its growth, is not visible in the table.

WPN reversed on the longer window, moving from +8.1% on 90-day in July to -10.8% now, while turning positive on both shorter windows at +8.8% and +8.9%. Americas Cardroom (ACR), the flagship room on WPN, remains the largest offshore poker room accessible to US players. ACR’s Dual Mystery Bounty Venoms, carrying $15M in combined guarantees, began on 13 August and run to 2 September, so the qualifying campaign sits inside this window while the tournaments themselves land in the September edition.

Crypto

CoinPoker is the only tracked crypto poker network in the SharkScope dataset, with 2,016 cash game players and 51,375 daily MTT entries. It ranks #3 globally by cash players on the 30-day average, having been passed by the PokerStars International pool at 2,198. It still leads PokerStars on the 7-day window at 2,122 against 2,100, and holds the strongest 90-day trend of any top-five network at +22.7%.

Tournament traffic moved in the opposite direction to cash. Daily entries rose from 43,153 in July to 51,375, while cash players slipped by 16. CoinPoker’s $6M CSOP series (125 events) and $30M Battle of Malta Online guarantee position it as the clear market leader in crypto poker.

The crypto poker segment extends beyond what SharkScope tracks. BCPoker, the poker vertical of BC.GAME Group, is growing but not yet covered by SharkScope’s tracking.

Sweepstakes

The sweepstakes segment fell 1.2% on the 30-day heatmap, a sharp slowdown from July’s 18.4% drop. Three networks are tracked: Global Poker (12,193 daily MTT entries, no cash data), Stake.us Poker (157 cash players, 4,958 MTT entries), and Clubs Poker (85 cash players, 8,817 MTT entries). Those two cash figures account for 242 of the segment’s 501 players, with the balance on Global Poker and other rooms whose cash figures PRO does not publish.

Stake Poker and Stake.us Poker are separate products from the same parent company (Easygo). Stake Poker operates in the International pool and recovered to +7.1% on 30-day after July’s 58.2% collapse. Stake.us Poker, the US-facing sweepstakes version, is the only network in the segment still declining, at -11.7% on 30-day and -15.2% on 90-day.

Clubs Poker holds the strongest 90-day trend of any tracked network at +23.0%. Global Poker turned positive on the 30-day window at +2.5% but carries the weakest 90-day figure in the segment at -25.1%. The segment’s decline has slowed sharply, though its two longest-window figures point in opposite directions.

Canadian and Ontario

Ontario operates as a regulated market separate from the rest of Canada. Four Ontarian networks are tracked: GGPoker Ontario (385 cash players, 15,683 MTT entries), PokerStars on FanDuel Ontario (66 cash, 1,305 MTT), BetMGM Ontario Network (49 cash, 2,679 MTT), and 888poker Ontario (25 cash, 7,775 MTT). Combined Ontarian cash traffic is 599 players, up 0.2% on 30-day, with 525 of those on the four networks above.

GGPoker Ontario holds roughly 64% of all Ontarian cash game traffic and is positive on all three windows at +4.5%, +2.7% and +6.1%. PokerStars on FanDuel Ontario carries the largest 90-day decline in the entire dataset at -64.6%. Canadian Poker Network (IGT) serves the rest of Canada outside Ontario with 5,303 daily MTT entries and no reported cash data, up 0.9% on 30-day.

Traffic by Operator

Individual networks can be misleading because major operators run multiple pools: Flutter operates five PokerStars-branded networks, Evoke runs four 888poker pools, and Playtech powers four iPoker skins. The table below aggregates traffic by parent company to show who actually controls the market.

NSUS controls 2.65x the cash game traffic of Flutter across all pools, narrowing from 2.99x in July. GGPoker’s International pool alone (9,567 players) still exceeds Flutter’s combined total across five networks (3,751). CoinPoker as a single-network operator (2,016 cash players) now sits 249 players behind Playtech’s entire four-network iPoker ecosystem (2,265), a gap that widened from 50 last month.

The tournament landscape is more fragmented. Winamax generates more MTT entries (384,359) from a single Southern European pool than Evoke does from four pools (134,841) or Playtech from four (88,367). Evoke’s 134,841 daily entries against just 321 cash players confirm it as the most tournament-dependent major operator in the dataset, at roughly 420 daily entries per concurrent cash seat.

About This Report

This report is published by VIP-Grinders, an independent poker and iGaming affiliate established in 2013. All traffic data is sourced from SharkScope Analytics, accessed via Poker Industry PRO. VIP-Grinders has no commercial relationship with either data provider and does not receive payment from any poker network for inclusion or ranking position.

Methodology

Cash game players represent the average number of concurrent real-money seats filled over a 24-hour period (PST), as reported by SharkScope. This is not a count of unique players. A network with 1,000 cash game players means that at any given moment during the day, approximately 1,000 seats are occupied across all real-money cash game tables.

Tournament entries represent the total number of daily entries into real-money scheduled multi-table tournaments (MTTs). Sit-and-go tournaments and lottery-format games (such as Spin & Go or Jackpot Sit & Go) are excluded. Re-entries and late registrations are counted as separate entries.

Trend percentages compare the current value against the value from the specified window (7-day, 30-day, or 90-day). These are PRO’s network-level figures, taken directly from its displayed data and not calculated by VIP-Grinders, and they are not specific to either the cash game or the tournament column. A network showing +22.7% on the 90-day window means its current traffic is 22.7% higher than its traffic 90 days ago.

Window dates for this edition. Data was exported on 13 August 2026, so on PRO’s trailing basis the 7-day window covers 7 to 13 August, the 30-day window covers 15 July to 13 August, and the 90-day trend compares current traffic against its level on 15 May.

Month-over-month comparisons in this report, such as the change in total tracked cash players from 20,885 in July to 21,784 in August, are calculated by VIP-Grinders from PRO’s published 30-day figures for each edition. They are not PRO trend data. Every percentage shown in a trend column is PRO’s.

What This Report Includes

This report tracks 36 poker networks across 13 player pools: International, Southern European, Italian, US Regulated, US Offshore, Ontarian, Canadian, Crypto, Sweepstakes, Asian, Austrian and Finnish, Ukrainian, and South African. Networks are ranked separately by cash game players and by tournament entries. Eight networks that do not report cash game data to SharkScope appear only in the tournament table.

PRO labels the US Regulated pool as US multi-state in its own heatmap. This report uses US Regulated throughout for consistency with previous editions.

Segment totals taken from the PRO heatmap include rooms whose cash figures PRO does not publish separately, including eight ranked networks that report no cash data at all. A segment total is therefore usually larger than the sum of the networks listed in the tables, and each market section says how much of its segment is covered by published figures.

What This Report Does Not Include

Networks not tracked by SharkScope are excluded. This includes BCPoker (BC.GAME Group), which is growing in the crypto poker space but does not yet appear in SharkScope’s dataset. Play-money traffic, social poker platforms, and ring-fenced networks that do not report to SharkScope are also excluded.

PRO Score, a composite metric used internally by Poker Industry PRO, is not published in this report. All rankings use raw player counts and entry figures.

How Rakeback Relates to Traffic

Traffic volume directly affects game quality, table selection, and rakeback value. Networks with more players offer more tables across stakes and formats, shorter wait times, and softer player pools. For grinders who earn rakeback as a percentage of the rake they generate, higher traffic networks typically mean more hands per hour and more consistent earning potential.

Update Schedule

This report is updated on or around the 15th of each month. Data is exported from PRO shortly before each update using trailing 7-day, 30-day, and 90-day windows, and the exact export date for the current edition is given in the methodology above.

Frequently Asked Questions