Online poker just keeps on getting bigger, with PokerStars - the game's biggest website - recording its 40 billionth visitor.

It took eight years for PokerStars to reach that mark - an average of five billion hands per year - but to give things a little perspective, the site reached 25 billion hands just last February.

In other words, the site recorded 15 billion hands in the past 12 months and could be on track to hit 100 billion in four years, or even less if its customer base continues to expand.

Of course, you don't make it to those sorts of numbers without being good at marketing, and PokerStars made the most of its approach to the milestone, awarding cash prizes to everyone dealt into each millionth hand once it had passed 39,600,000,000 hands last Wednesday.

PokerScout.com recorded a peak of 53,371 real money ring game players on the site on Friday, a significant rise compared to the just under 50,000 players that played there the day before. In fact, more than 50,000 cash game players were logged in on eight separate days between January 31 and February 19, even though the site failed to break the 50,000 barrier on even one occasion between December 21 and January 30.

The record breaking moment now puts the ball back in Full Tilt Poker's court in the battle for supremacy between the world's two biggest online poker sites.