Although it is not an official online poker war as of yet, a lot of the news coming about the recent departing of two sites from the Cake Poker Network to the rival Merge poker Network could just be the tip of the iceberg if current trends continue.

Right now, the Cake Poker Network is barely holding onto its 10th position by traffic with around 2,500 cash game players during peak periods of the day. By contrast, the US-friendly Merge Gaming Network is just barely in the top 20, holding onto that 20th spot with around 250 cash game player during the same period of time.

All that is expected to change sometime this month however with the movement of players from Players Only Poker and Sportsbook Poker to the Merge Gaming Network as both sites have relocated from Cake to Merge. This could effectively quintuple the amount of traffic the Merge Gaming Network gets during peak periods, but at the very least it will likely allow them to move up 2-3 spots in the rankings and start to really make some progress towards eating into some of the market share leaders.

The Cake Poker Network currently is home to Doyle’s Room, Cake Poker and Unabomber Poker. These three very important online poker sites are only a selection of what the Cake Poker Network can boast in terms of online poker sites and with the addition of three new sites recently as well as the presence of one of the most unique loyalty programs out there, the move has had many scratching their heads.

One reason could be that the Cake Poker Network offers a maximum of 33% rakeback in its dealings whereas the Merge Gaming Network has decided to move up to 35% from its current 30% level. That could have been the impetus for the move by both sites which are frequented mostly by secondary poker players that like to get deals and are more interested in betting on sports than playing online poker. Only time will tell whether this was strictly a numbers move or whether it is a herald of things to come in the future in terms of tension between the Cake Poker and Merge Gaming online poker networks.