PokerStars is into the second week of its December Festival, a month-long celebration in which at least $15 million in cash will be handed out across a wide variety of game types. Usually, poker room promotions focus on just tournament players or just cash game players, but this one has something for everybody. The first phase, the $1 Million Milestone Handspromotion, has wrapped up and, to put a bow on it, PokerScouthas analyzed how it affected PokerStars’ cash game traffic in its weekly Scouting Report.

The $1 Million Milestone Hands portion of the Festival should have been familiar to PokerStars players, as it was the typical milestone hand promo that PokerStars has run for years, just folded into a larger promotion. The milestones were every millionth hand starting 10:00am ET on December 1. Cash prizes were awarded to the players dealt into every millionth hand, with megabucks doled out for the 300th milestone hand.

An extra chunk of money, guaranteed to be at least $250,000, was awarded to all of the players who were playing at tables of the exact same type as the 300th milestone hand when that hand was hit.

As always happens during milestone hand promos, players flooded the tables in the hours and minutes leading up to the 300th milestone hand on Saturday, hoping to get a piece of the jackpot. But how much of an effect did this really have on PokerStars? Did the $1 million guarantee have a larger effect than last year’s $700,000 guarantee? PokerScout took a look at the numbers.

From Midnight PT to around 6:00am PT during the final day of the promo, PokerStars’ cash game traffic steadily increased as the lesser milestone hands were hit. As the 300th milestone hand approached, traffic ramped up much more quickly, peaking, not at all surprisingly, at around 9:00 when that final hand hit.

PokerScout reported that almost 70,000 cash game players were online at the time, but said it could have even been more because things fluctuated so quickly. After the big milestone hand, tons of people logged off and traffic cratered before stabilizing at normal levels.

PokerScout reported that in the six days of the $1 Million Milestone Hands promo, PokerStars’ cash game traffic was up 23% from the previous week; traffic increased 19% for the week as a whole. The $300,000 of extra guaranteed prize money did not, however, make a difference in traffic compared to last year. PokerScout said the impact on traffic was exactly the same this year as it was last year.

Because the promotion occurred slightly earlier than it did last year, PokerStars is now ahead of 2013’s pace, with cash game traffic up marginally at 0.6%. PokerScout felt this could be a temporary boost, but things look good so far as we get into winter, as this past Sunday’s average player count bested last week’s by 7%.

PokerScout does not believe the other promotions in the December Festival will have much of an impact on cash game numbers. Knockout Week is tournament-focused and while there may be cash game players that give it a shot, there isn’t likely to be significant migration from cash to tournaments. Next week features a Zoom Poker contest, but PokerScout felt the prizes are not attractive enough to boost fast-fold traffic in any sort of noteworthy way.

PokerScout’s Scouting Report is a daily newsletter for the online poker industry, with in-depth data and analysis of the market. More information can be found by clicking here or contacting support@pokerscout.com.

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