the poker boom and online profitability, how much longer?

[Sephus]

is poker a fad or has it experienced a renaissance?

will its popularity continue to increase or has it reached its peak?

do you expect online poker to get more difficult as more and more thinking people find out about all the easy money flying around and more fish go bust? how quickly do you think this might happen?

[HesseJam]

a) I do not think it is fad, especially online poker. It is going to continue.

b) The European market has some immediate potential, the Asian market has a huge potential.

c) better players tend to stay, bad players tend to drop out. The amount of better players will increase over time, the amount of bad players might increase in the near future and at some time stay constant or probably go down. More better players in relation to bad players means that "better" will more and more mean less average profit than today.

If the amount of new players does not continue to grow, poker sites might enter into a rake war to attract more players. If still more money is made with low limit players a bonus war is more likely. I think, currently we have a bonus war going on, at least I am being paid way more in boni than I pay in rake.

[AncientPC]

B) I think the big mistake in thinking Asia as a possible market is the lack of average expendable income. If you factor in that the average income is less than US they will more likely be microlimit / small stakes players.

The above may not apply to Japan, as they earn an average income higher than the US but have less free time.

[SinCityGuy]

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do you expect online poker to get more difficult as more and more thinking people find out about all the easy money flying around and more fish go bust? how quickly do you think this might happen?

[/ QUOTE ]

It's already happening.

At peak hours, Party now shows 70,000 players. But there aren't really 70,000 players. A large percentage of that number is made up of people playing from two to eight tables. The average number of people seeing the flop is decreasing because of the deluge of multitablers.

[AncientPC]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
do you expect online poker to get more difficult as more and more thinking people find out about all the easy money flying around and more fish go bust? how quickly do you think this might happen?

[/ QUOTE ]

It's already happening.

At peak hours, Party now shows 70,000 players. But there aren't really 70,000 players. A large percentage of that number is made up of people playing from two to eight tables. The average number of people seeing the flop is decreasing because of the deluge of multitablers.

[/ QUOTE ]

You only need a second account (and a second monitor) to multitable more than 4 tables. Yes there isn't 70,000 players because of people who play more than one account simultaneously, but I doubt that at the moment even a significant portion of them are connected with two accounts.

You can still multitable under one account (and therefore only count as one player).

[lefty rosen]

Yep the wages of the average Chinese worker has gone way up, but thats like saying because I found two beer bottles today I doubled my income, because yesterday I found one....... /images/graemlins/grin.gif The disposable income in the large Asian countries like China, India and Pakistan is non-existant by North American standards.

[SinCityGuy]

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You can still multitable under one account (and therefore only count as one player).

[/ QUOTE ]

When you log in and see "64,392 players on 8,236 tables", anybody who is eight-tabling is counted as eight players. There aren't really 64,392 players. I would guess there aren't even half that many.

[Benholio]

[ QUOTE ]
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You can still multitable under one account (and therefore only count as one player).

[/ QUOTE ]

When you log in and see "64,392 players on 8,236 tables", anybody who is eight-tabling is counted as eight players. There aren't really 64,392 players. I would guess there aren't even half that many.

[/ QUOTE ]

I dunno if you have anything but a hunch to back this up, but it just sounds wrong to me. 64k unique player accounts sounds very feasible to me with 8k tables running (8 per table, and that assumes observers or idle players aren't counted).

[MicroBob]

I don't profess to know ANYTHING about Asian culture nor the Asian economy...and I hope that my casual observations do not come off as racist.

The Horseshoe in Tunica seems to be the preferred gambling location for area Asians. BJ and poker (and bacarrat and pai-gow).
Some of these Asians bet incredibly wildly and I have no idea where they get all their money from.
I believe that many of them are Vietnamiese or Thai (I have chatted with a couple....but many of them that I would see semi-regularly speak virtually no english).

I played in a poker game with 8 Asians (and one other caucasian) and it was the wildest game I've ever been involved in. Typically capped 9-ways PF...with 4 or 5 capping each street to show-down. One guy was going up and down a couple racks every few hands and proudly showing his 62o bluff as he would pay-up at the end.
Lots of crazy stuff.

I've also seen some $100-$500 betting blackjack players of Asian persuasion.
At the Shoe, sometimes 10 or 15 of them would all be gathered around the same $25 or $50 minimum-bet table but they wouldn't be shy about betting more than that.

Agaib, I don't know anything about the economy of Thailand or Vietnam or anywhere else in asia for that matter....and I don't know why some of the Asians in this area seem to be so much freer with their money.
But the experience of having seen this so many times I have walked into the Horseshoe has given me an impression that some in Asia do indeed have some dough.

[Richard Berg]

[ QUOTE ]
Yep the wages of the average Chinese worker has gone way up, but thats like saying because I found two beer bottles today I doubled my income, because yesterday I found one....... /images/graemlins/grin.gif The disposable income in the large Asian countries like China, India and Pakistan is non-existant by North American standards.

[/ QUOTE ]
Most Americans cannot afford to lose hundreds/thousands at poker either. Yet the games continue.

There are 10X as many people in Asia as in the USA. Even if their income distribution is so skewed that only the top 10% have incomes comparable to the USA median, their addition alone would be like doubling the American market.

[Alobar]

It doesnt matter if 95% of asia has no disposable income, there is like over 2 billion people in asia, plenty of rich people to go around. And from what I understand culturaly asians love to gamble.

[imitation]

I'm rolling up my stake and playing the 100/200 before the fish dissappear.

[HesseJam]

What I wanted to say above was that the European market has some more immediate potential and the Asian market has mid-term potential. Average Income in Asia is increasing at a higher rate than in NA and E. Inequalities in income distritbution are higher so there are more than enough people who could afford (maybe not "afford" but they will do it anyway) to gamble away money. My observation on my business travels also confirms MicroBob. Many Asians like to gamble aggressively. They seem to enjoy this very much in public. I am not sure about online.

[HesseJam]

[ QUOTE ]

It's already happening.

At peak hours, Party now shows 70,000 players. But there aren't really 70,000 players. A large percentage of that number is made up of people playing from two to eight tables. The average number of people seeing the flop is decreasing because of the deluge of multitablers.

[/ QUOTE ]

I see the same (over the last three months)

[ctv1116]

Its going to peak in the next year or two. People are talking about 5-6000 at the main event next year, so clearly there is a boom happening. Enjoy the games while it lasts, because its slowly slipping.

[One Word Answer]

nosedive

[SlantNGo]

Coming from an Asian (Chinese) family, I can tell you that their stance on gambling is very mixed. Some really enjoy gambling, and others hate gambling so much that they'll make it a point to spread their hate of gambling around to everyone. However, as you guys were saying, simply due to the huge population in Asia, if even a small amount would be interested in online poker, that would be a very sizeable influx of players.

Some things you have to look at though... the percentage of families that have internet access, while it is growing, is still quite low. While the pro-gambling crowd loves gambling, I think it's unlikely they'll take as much a liking to online gambling, especially because so many people are relatively unfamiliar with computers. Your best bet is to target the younger crowd, the 16-21 year-olds who were probably the first generation to grow up with the Internet. So with Asia, I think the possibility is definitely there, just not yet.

[eastbay]

[ QUOTE ]
anybody who is eight-tabling is counted as eight players.

[/ QUOTE ]

What do you base this assertion on?

eastbay

[Voltron87]

As a member of the next generation, I really don't think this boom will die out. This game is so popular among teenagers, its unreal. There are hundreds of thousands of budding players who arent playing WSOP or online yet, in 10 years they will still be playing.