Bwin.party shares surged by almost 35% this morning as a consequence of Friday's announcements by the U.S. Department of Justice. The weekend also saw traffic on Bodog Poker rise by 25%.

The consequences of Friday's announcements by the U.S. Department of Justice continue to shake up the binding structures of the online poker world.

Following the indictments against Full Tilt Poker, Absolute Poker, UB.com and PokerStars, all sites have been experiencing large drops in traffic numbers, according to PokerNewsDaily.com.

Full Tilt saw a drop of nearly 50% in cash game traffic compared to numbers from last week, while the CEREUS network which comprises both Absolute Poker and UB.com registered a 39% fall.

PokerStars also saw player traffic drop at its cash game tables by some 30%.

The decline in traffic has also had its effect on tournament play across all the indicted sites, most notably on Full Tilt Poker and PokerStars.

Full Tilt's opening FTOPS XX event cut down its guaranteed prize pool from $3 million to $1 million, while yesterday's Sunday Million on PokerStars was cut around $500,000 from $1.5 million to a little less than $1 million.

While the biggest U.S. sites thus continue to suffer, competitor sites and networks in turn saw numbers surge over the weekend.

Bodog Poker, which continues to offer online poker to U.S. players, saw traffic go up by almost 25%, followed by the Merge Network, which experienced a 23% rise in overall player traffic from Friday to Sunday.

The shake-up of the U.S. market was also good news for some of the non-American network owners, most notably bwin.party and 888 Holdings.

Bwin.party shares went up by nearly 35% in early trading on the London Stock Exchange this morning, while 888 Holding jumped some 15%, according to Reuters.

Source: Poker.org