Which Poker Rooms are Faking it on Twitter?

Thanks to a handy tool that lets you easily gauge the amount of fake Twitter followers a given account has, “outing” accounts with large shares of faux followers has become something of a popular parlor game.  I thought it might be fun to turn the tool on the top 10 online poker rooms by traffic to see who really has social clout and who’s just fronting.

Quick caveat: Having a bunch of fakes doesn’t mean a room necessarily purchased Twitter followers.  Fakes can also follow for promotions, to burnish their own profile or in the hope of grabbing an easy follow back.

With that out of the way, here are the top 10 poker sites (by real-money traffic, excluding regional duplicates like PokerStars.fr) ranked from least to most on the fakin’ it scale.

#10 Lock Poker / @LockPoker

• Total followers: 1800
• Fake: 3%
• Inactive: 30%
• Good: 67%

While Lock may have had its share of problems over the last year, fake Twitter followers isn’t one of them.  The room has the lowest percentages of fakes out of the 10 largest poker rooms online (but also sports one of the lowest overall total of followers, so that shouldn’t be too surprising).

#9 Bovada / @BovadaLV

• Total followers: 2500
• Fake: 4%
• Inactive: 33%
• Good: 63%

The Twitter for Bovada Poker has far fewer followers, so we went with the main Twitter account for the company.  Again, with a fairly low number of overall followers, it would be a little surprising to find a high percentage of fakes.

#8 Betfair (Ongame) / @Betfairpoker

• Total followers: 21,000
• Fake: 5%
• Inactive: 20%
• Good: 75%

I chose Betfair to represent the Ongame network (even though the room isn’t expected to be there much longer).  Turns out Betfair is a legitimate Twitter beast, with the highest percentage of “good” followers and the best ratio of total followers to fake followers.

#7. Ladbrokes (Microgaming) / @Ladbrokes

• Total followers: 23,000
• Fake: 6%
• Inactive: 39%
• Good: 55%

Ladbrokes was my pick to represent the Microgaming Network, and I went with the primary Twitter account since it had 10x the followers of the poker account. In many ways, Ladbrokes has stats similar to Betfair’s – except Betfair has more followers and a better share of “good” followers despite being a poker-only account.

#6. Party Poker / @Partypoker

• Total followers: 7200
• Fake: 6%
• Inactive: 37%
• Good: 57%

Somewhat surprisingly low number of total Twitter followers for the #2/#3 online poker room in the world, but at least almost all of them are real. Time for some candid Kara Scott photos, guys. Or Mike Sexton photos. Whatever works, right?

#5. Paddy Power (iPoker) / @Paddypowerpoker

• Total followers: 3400
• Fake: 6%
• Inactive: 27%
• Good: 67%

My pick for the iPoker Network (because apparently Titan Poker doesn’t have a Twitter account?) is pretty darn clean when it comes to Twitter. In addition to a low amount of fakes, Paddy has a strong number of good followers, second only to Betfair.

#4. 888 Poker / @888Poker

• Total followers: 13,000
• Fake: 11%
• Inactive: 40%
• Good: 49%

Now we’re starting to see some numbers. Apparently, more than 1300 of the followers of 888 Poker’s twitter account are merely figments of someone’s imagination, a number that at least raises the possibility they were acquired by less-than-social means.

#3. Carbon Poker (Merge) / @Carbonpoker

• Total followers: 11,000
• Fake: 18%
• Inactive: 35%
• Good: 37%

Carbon’s not looking so hot after this breakdown, with higher-than-average fake and inactive followers. Something close to 2,000 of the accounts following the room are fakes, the largest absolute number so far on our countdown.

#2. Winamax Poker / @Teamwinamax

• Total followers: 9000
• Fake: 20%
• Inactive: 43%
• Good: 37%

More like Fakeamax, amirite? Or, as the French-speaking customers of the room might say, ai-je droit?

Update – Winamax was kind enough to provide a more accurate translation of “amirite,” as well as a response to their position on this list:

@opreport Winamax is not in the business of buying Twitter followers. I confess not even being aware of how to do such thing.

— Winamax (@TeamWinamax) August 20, 2012

@opreport Also, a proper translation of “Am I right ?” in French would be “Ai-je raison ?” ou “N’ai-je pas raison ?”

— Winamax (@TeamWinamax) August 20, 2012

#1 PokerStars / @Pokerstars

• Total followers: 102,000
• Fake: 27%
• Inactive: 41%
• Good: 32%

Is there anything PokerStars isn’t number one at? The room has the most fake followers by a wide margin both in relative and absolute terms. While I’d love to be breaking the mini-scandal that PokerStars buys Twitter followers en masse, the fakers are more likely a result of the frequent promos and competitions Stars runs via Twitter than of any nefarious activity on the part of PokerStars.

Plus, even if you just take the “good” followers of PokerStars, you’ve still got a Twitter following that dwarfs any other room on this list.

Check out the Fake Twitter Follower tool from StatusPeople

So, are poker rooms buying Twitter followers?  Maybe, but to be honest I was a bit surprised at the numbers I found – I thought they would be a lot higher.  Twitter has gotten pretty good at shuttering bot accounts, which might be keeping the numbers low.  It would also fairly embarrassing for a room to get caught red-handed buying fans, so any illicit number-juicing is probably happening at purposely low levels.

As for OPR: 3% of  our followers are fake.  What’s your count?