Let Battle Commence

I see PokerStars and Absolute Poker have opportunistically rushed out new reload bonuses to take advantage of the Party Poker upheaval.

It remains to be seen who will do best out of this, but expect PokerStars to be rolling out a 'worlds biggest poker site' campaign anytime now.

In the short term, it looks like the Party rump sites will be shark infested waters, but I wonder how the long term will pan out.

Coral Eurobet has just been bought by Gala Casinos, who are a big UK B&M operation - there are three Gala casinos in Glasgow alone.

I'd expect Gala to go down the 888.com route, and try to create a casino and poker site, but they can add a third and fourth unit too, as the combined company are big B&M bingo and bookmaking operators.

We all know how juicy the Pacific Poker players can be, so maybe you shouldn't uninstall your Party skin software just yet.