Poker Boom at its Zenith?

[boondoggle]

I am wondering if the poker boom is peaking now? I daresay that the number of new players will level off at some time due to market conditions. Once this happens, the fish pool will dry up I do believe. Yet every month brings new bonuses and new people to the tables but this is not sustainable.


cheers
Boon

[Rudbaeck]

I think Las Vegas casinos will shut down real soon now. Surely everyone has spent all their leisure money by now?

And I don't think it's peaking just yet. The US peak might be in the near future, but the european market is barely tapped, and the non-western markets are pristine.

[AncientPC]

People still have money to spend, Vegas has been there for quite a while.

[FlFishOn]

"I am wondering if the poker boom is peaking now?"

Why? You own a site?

The only thing about online poker that really matter is how much money I'm making. If it dips, I'll let you know.

P.S. A lot of you are curious about my win streaks. After the 66 day streak ended I lost for two days and am now on a 15 day run. Gotta love NL.

[Corey]

[ QUOTE ]
P.S. A lot of you are curious about my win streaks. After the 66 day streak ended I lost for two days and am now on a 15 day run. Gotta love NL.

[/ QUOTE ]

Gotta love fuzzy acounting practices.

[Voltron87]

There are so many high schoolers learning how to play and getting addicted, as long as the WSOP keeps getting televised and the media/ESPN/WPT/poker sites and advertisers play their cards right poker will be huge for a long time.

[tech]

Since I have been reading poker forums on the Internet, there has been one post like this per week, at minimum. Eventually one will be right.

[Freudian]

[ QUOTE ]
I am wondering if the poker boom is peaking now? I daresay that the number of new players will level off at some time due to market conditions. Once this happens, the fish pool will dry up I do believe. Yet every month brings new bonuses and new people to the tables but this is not sustainable.


cheers
Boon

[/ QUOTE ]

If online poker will get big in Germany, France, Spain, Italy and perhaps even more Asia, there will be much growth still.

[FlFishOn]

"Gotta love fuzzy acounting practices."

I keep cleaner books than Enron, Worldcom or Adelphia!

[poker-penguin]

[ QUOTE ]
Since I have been reading poker forums on the Internet, there has been one post like this per week, at minimum. Eventually one will be right.

[/ QUOTE ]

And a few months later, we'll probably see half of the same people we see here at the XYZ (backgammon, chess, yahoo pool, or whatever people *are* gambling on the Internet) forum.

[OrangeKing]

I wonder what these conversations were like historically...

1858: Do you think this chess boom will last? Sure this Morphy guy is good and all, but nobody will be playing this game in a few years. Once people see how crazy he went, the chess boom will be over!

1929: Babe Ruth sure has been good for baseball, but it'll never work long-term as a commercial enterprise. You can't keep bringing in new fans - it just isn't sustainable! A lot of these teams will have to fold, and baseball will never reach the west coast.

1969: This Super Bowl thing is just a fad - the NFL and AFL will stop operating once people get tired of football.

[boondoggle]

[ QUOTE ]
I wonder what these conversations were like historically...

1858: Do you think this chess boom will last? Sure this Morphy guy is good and all, but nobody will be playing this game in a few years. Once people see how crazy he went, the chess boom will be over!

1929: Babe Ruth sure has been good for baseball, but it'll never work long-term as a commercial enterprise. You can't keep bringing in new fans - it just isn't sustainable! A lot of these teams will have to fold, and baseball will never reach the west coast.

1969: This Super Bowl thing is just a fad - the NFL and AFL will stop operating once people get tired of football.

[/ QUOTE ]

1. as a former expert in chess, it is all but dead.
2. how many teams in baseball made a profit in the last 5 years? LOL.

3. the superbowl only occurs once a year and is not applicable to this discussion because online poker occurs more than once a year..lol.

Furthermore, I was not stating that it was a fad nor that it will go away. I was suggesting that the days of 'shooting fish in barrel' will come to an end. Can we say dot com bust boys...lol.

For the poster who made the really stupid comment about vegas not going anywhere. Is poker the only thing you can do in vegas - no. There are MANY entertainment venues and the type of person who plays the slot machines is not the same type of person who plays texas holdem. Therefore that is bad comparison as well.

Can there be this many stupid people online?

cheers
Boon

[OrangeKing]

[ QUOTE ]

1. as a former expert in chess, it is all but dead.
2. how many teams in baseball made a profit in the last 5 years? LOL.

3. the superbowl only occurs once a year and is not applicable to this discussion because online poker occurs more than once a year..lol.
Boon

[/ QUOTE ]

1. As a current tournament player and former employee of the US Chess Federation, I can tell you that more people play chess in the world than ever before. Not just casually, but there are also more rated players and tournaments with large prize funds than at any time in history.

2. Virtually all of them, and attendence has never been higher.

3. True, but professional football is popular even when nobody is playing (witness the excitement surrounding the NFL Draft).

Could the argument that just because something becomes more popular that this growth must stop and in fact reverse be any stupider?

[boondoggle]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]

1. as a former expert in chess, it is all but dead.
2. how many teams in baseball made a profit in the last 5 years? LOL.

3. the superbowl only occurs once a year and is not applicable to this discussion because online poker occurs more than once a year..lol.
Boon

[/ QUOTE ]

1. As a current tournament player and former employee of the US Chess Federation, I can tell you that more people play chess in the world than ever before. Not just casually, but there are also more rated players and tournaments with large prize funds than at any time in history.

2. Virtually all of them, and attendence has never been higher.

3. True, but professional football is popular even when nobody is playing (witness the excitement surrounding the NFL Draft).

Could the argument that just because something becomes more popular that this growth must stop and in fact reverse be any stupider?

[/ QUOTE ]

You are an idiot. I do not use this word lightly.

The us chess federation just some months ago was in such a financial bind that they were thinking of missing their magazine publication.

here is quote from baseball weekly about profit/loss of baseball teams

[ QUOTE ]

On the Baseball Weekly site, there's an article on the Profit and Loss statements of all MLB teams.

According to the numbers posted, there were, in fact, only five teams who recorded a profit for last season. Sea, Cle, Mil, NYY and ChC.

The biggest losers? And there are some surprises here!
LA, Ari, Tor, Tex and Atl.

These clubs had the biggest expenses, including payroll:
NYY - $201M(118M)
LA - 189M(116M)
NYM - 174M( 99M)
Bos - 174M(118M)
Sea - 168M( 84M)


[/ QUOTE ]

here is usa today link.
http://www.usatoday.com/sports/baseball/stories/2001-12-05-focus-expenses.htm

cheers
Boon

[OrangeKing]

The USCF never actually missed a publication, though. And that had nothing to do with the popularity of chess, which is what we're talking about. The incompetence of the people running the USCF is not in question. /images/graemlins/smile.gif However, since I was working there at the time of the "crisis", I'll tell you that it was never quite as bad as reported.

Also, your baseball numbers are reported by the owners, and are entirely unaudited - I don't buy them for a second. Regardless, since our real argument for poker is "after this boom, will fewer people be playing and donating into our pockets?", my argument saying that attendence at baseball games is at an all-time high still stands. As do my arguments for the number of people playing chess in tournaments they have to pay to enter.

[spamuell]

Can there be this many stupid people online?

Doesn't this answer your original question?

[tylerdurden]

[ QUOTE ]
You are an idiot. I do not use this word lightly.

The us chess federation just some months ago was in such a financial bind that they were thinking of missing their magazine publication.

[/ QUOTE ]

So what? The USCF is not "chess".

[Rudbaeck]

[ QUOTE ]
For the poster who made the really stupid comment about vegas not going anywhere. Is poker the only thing you can do in vegas - no. There are MANY entertainment venues and the type of person who plays the slot machines is not the same type of person who plays texas holdem. Therefore that is bad comparison as well.

[/ QUOTE ]

They do have one thing in common, the losers at slots (ie everyone) and the losers at poker (ie almost everyone) get money from non-gambling sources and return. Usually at the latest just after their next paycheck.

Pros in 1976 worried that poker had peaked already, because surely people couldn't afford to keep losing at this rate, could they?

It's also alot easier for a bright person with a big income to think his intelligence will carry the day in poker than in slots. Because for this person intelligence has carried the day in so many different fields. He is smarter than the competition, so how can he lose?

Vegas has many forms of entertainment, but the only thing it really has to lure in the tourists is the dream of instant riches. The rest is just bells and whistles. Most people who just want to see a few good shows go to New York, London or Paris instead.

That people are lifelong losers at gambling won't stop them from being lifelong gamblers.

[Greg J]

The question is not IMO whether poker will keep getting bigger (I think it will, but that might be wishful thinking -- but assuming it will). The question is whether bad players will get better.

[Greg J]

Why can't you make this about yr argument and not people? Seriously, it irks me when someone calls someone else an "idiot" when "I think your opinion is wrong" works just fine. Ad hominem attacks are pointless and immature.

[boondoggle]

[ QUOTE ]
Why can't you make this about yr argument and not people? Seriously, it irks me when someone calls someone else an "idiot" when "I think your opinion is wrong" works just fine. Ad hominem attacks are pointless and immature.

[/ QUOTE ]

This board is nothing but ad hom attacks. I do not like to do it but I lose patients with some people who even in the face of hard facts continues to delude.

1. chess is dead for paying tournaments

2. baseball is not making profits yet when presented with facts the idiot simply made up some bogus excuse about why they were wrong. The overall attendance has not went up in the last 5 years and he states that its at an all time high.

I think the problem with posting on here is expecting to find civil and intelligent debate and that is sorely lacking.

cheers
Boon

[BISCO]

strictly an opinion, but i think that online poker has already peaked in its current form....but live poker has still a good year or two before being on its way out

[Bremen]

[ QUOTE ]
So what? The USCF is not "chess".

[/ QUOTE ]
Chess is a game. The USCF is an organization that seeks to promote the game. If the NHL ultimately collapses will it be because hockey isn't popular or because the people in charge are morons (bad question since I know alot of people here probably live in places where it isn't popular).

[scotty34]

[ QUOTE ]
I wonder what these conversations were like historically...

1858: Do you think this chess boom will last? Sure this Morphy guy is good and all, but nobody will be playing this game in a few years. Once people see how crazy he went, the chess boom will be over!

1929: Babe Ruth sure has been good for baseball, but it'll never work long-term as a commercial enterprise. You can't keep bringing in new fans - it just isn't sustainable! A lot of these teams will have to fold, and baseball will never reach the west coast.

1969: This Super Bowl thing is just a fad - the NFL and AFL will stop operating once people get tired of football.

[/ QUOTE ]

Some fads thrive for many many years, some don't. Look at games such as Pogs, or Magic: The Gathering. These were immensely popular in the 90's, but have died down considerably. Pogs is basically non-existent, and Magic is not even close to what it was.

These aren't the best examples, but there are plenty out there. I'm sure you can understand what I'm trying to say.

[AncientPC]

Magic . . . the Gathering of Virgins.

[Losing all]

[ QUOTE ]
Magic . . . the Gathering of Virgins.

[/ QUOTE ]

sweet! You just make that up?

[solucky]

most gamblers like small entry and huge wins..............so i think large tourneys and NL have the best chance. People outside of the US will read first a book to know the rules....and the most fish never read a book. Poker is IN in the moment...wait for the first news....kid shot his parents.....man killed his wife......girl make a bankrobbery.... poker is gambling. And for any winner you see 2 loosers, but in the moment they show only the bright side. And last point I play on 5 servers but i dont see this LARGE growing last weeks.

[MicroBob]

Hi -

There is now a national network covering poker (heads-up champ on NBC) along with all the coverage of poker on ESPN and FSN (as well as Bravo, E, Speed).

The fact that a national network is getting into the act is NOT trivial.


Online poker numbers continue to RISE (not fall).

High-schoolers and teens are playing the game all the time. As are 25 year-olds as well as the usual assortment of 40-year-olds and up.
But it's generally being fueled by the youths...many of whom will be regular players in the B&M's when they turn 21...and will more and more turn to playing online beginning when they are somewhere around 18-21.


Gambling in general is as popular AND accepted as it has ever been.



Regarding baseball - Attendance is pretty high. There are more teams bringing in 2-mil to 3-mil fans then there ever has been.

Supposedly the 'glory days' of baseball were in the 1950's. Well...the beloved Brooklyn Dodgers didn't even break 1-million in attendance in a couple of those years.
This is about as bad as the attendance the lowly Montreal Expos would generate.


Gone are the days when Cubs games were half-empty. It does have something to do with their recent winning seasons...but it's also due to just the increasing popularity of going to the games. More and more cubs games are sold-out then ever.


Many many teams do pretty decently attendance wise. And this is with higher ticket-prices (and also one needs to include the high-priced luxury boxes that generate a ton of revenue too).

I don't feel like looking up the numbers...but among teams that I am guessing had some of their best attendance figures in 2003 or 2004 I would speculate that on that list would include:
NYY
BOS
HOU
PIT
MIL
CHC
LAA
SD
SF
PHI
MIN
STL

I am guessing that all of these teams were in the 2-mil to 3-mil range in 2003 or 2004. Compare to the 1950's when it was MUCH rarer for a team to break 2-million.


Teams that did decently even though their teams sucked included SEA and ARI I believe. The fact that they had any fans at all is kind of incredible.


Teams that still do reasonably well (but aren't exactly breaking their own records) include:
LAD
OAK
TEX
CIN
CLE
BAL
COL
ATL


Although I believe that attendance is generally declining in the slightly older retro-stadium cities (as opposed to more-recent retro's) like BAL, COL, CLE, ATL.



I just find it strange that so many sports-talk morons speak of how unpopular and dead the sport of baseball is when there are so many teams regularly drawing crowds of 35k-40k (and doing it with the aforementioned ridiculously high ticket-prices).

[Voltron87]

Baseball is doing great right now.

I'll repeat, poker is huge with high schoolers and college kids, and that is why it will continue to be big. If there were no younger people playing I would be a little worried, but that is not the case.

[OrangeKing]

[ QUOTE ]

1. chess is dead for paying tournaments

[/ QUOTE ]

Except for the fact that the open tournament with the largest prize pool ever will be happening in Minnesota in two weeks. Yep, totally dead.

http://www.hbfoundation.org/gcc/index.shtml

As for baseball, 6 teams set all-time attendence records last year. MLB set a record as a whole with over 73 million fans last year, which was an 8% increase from 2003.

http://money.cnn.com/2005/04/04/news/funny/baseball_ticket_prices/

Please don't accuse me of ignoring the facts.

My point isn't that poker will sustain it's popularity, as there have most certainly been things which have lost their popularity quickly or slowly over time. But a lot of people, including the OP, seem to take it as an assumption, which I think is completely unfair. Someone would have to show me evidence that the popularity of poker is starting to fall before I believe it will happen. I accept the possibility, just not the inevitability. Thus my examples.

[Michael Davis]

I'm glad I can still get a decent backgammon and rummy game whenever I'm looking for it....

-Michael

[Shoe]

[ QUOTE ]
I'm glad I can still get a decent backgammon and rummy game whenever I'm looking for it....

-Michael

[/ QUOTE ]

There are lots of backgammon and rummy games on ESPN too....

What people fail to realize is that poker is an addictive game. I'm not saying everyone who plays it becomes a compulsive, degenerate scumbag, however, most people will come back to it after taking a few months to give it "another shot", in a cycle which will repeat for most people for the rest of their lives. After all, that's how vegas survives.

[MicroBob]

[ QUOTE ]
Except for the fact that the open tournament with the largest prize pool ever will be happening in Minnesota in two weeks. Yep, totally dead.

[/ QUOTE ]


That's terrific.
I've been out of chess for a couple of years and admit that I have no clue what's been going on of late with the tourney scene and what sort of sillyness the USCF has been up to lately.

I'm a sucky player anyway (USCF rating 1400) but enjoy the live tournaments and was at one time a regular on ICC.


I do hope that chess popularity continues to grow...and once I get my income more stable so that I don't feel guilty when I'm playing a game other than poker (where I can't make an income so am obviously just doing it for recreation) I would love to try a couple of chess tournaments again.


The 'chess is all but dead' feeling possibly comes from the situation at the top of the heap.

There isn't much world-championship or major-tournament buzz like there should be. Just not much promotion as far as i know (I could be missing it though).

Kasparov is retired and fischer belongs in a loony-bin but chose Iceland instead.
That's about everything that is happening at the top of the chess-world as far as I know.


We need something of interest at the top. Doesn't even need to be a charismatic player like Kasparov.
A Karpov type will do.
Just something to inject some interest and publicity for the top players that seems to be significantly less than it has ever been.


Chess doesn't need the Cold War back-drop of Fischer-Spasky to be bigger than it is currently.

The interest in the Kasparov-Karpov matches was still much bigger than anything that we have today.

[TGoldman]

[ QUOTE ]
If online poker will get big in Germany, France, Spain, Italy and perhaps even more Asia, there will be much growth still.

[/ QUOTE ]
I've always felt this type of argument is a red herring. It would be nice if European or Asian countries eventually arrive to fuel the growth of online poker, however, it does nothing to address the question of whether the online poker economy is self-sustainable without continually adding new markets.

[Shoe]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
If online poker will get big in Germany, France, Spain, Italy and perhaps even more Asia, there will be much growth still.

[/ QUOTE ]
I've always felt this type of argument is a red herring. It would be nice if European or Asian countries eventually arrive to fuel the growth of online poker, however, it does nothing to address the question of whether the online poker economy is self-sustainable without continually adding new markets.

[/ QUOTE ]

The growth is not sustainable at it's current rate forever. However, it could still continue to grow at it's current rate for the next few years.

However, that does not mean there will ever be a decline in poker. The growth might just slow to a more sustainable rate.

[OrangeKing]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Except for the fact that the open tournament with the largest prize pool ever will be happening in Minnesota in two weeks. Yep, totally dead.

[/ QUOTE ]


That's terrific.
I've been out of chess for a couple of years and admit that I have no clue what's been going on of late with the tourney scene and what sort of sillyness the USCF has been up to lately.

I'm a sucky player anyway (USCF rating 1400) but enjoy the live tournaments and was at one time a regular on ICC.


I do hope that chess popularity continues to grow...and once I get my income more stable so that I don't feel guilty when I'm playing a game other than poker (where I can't make an income so am obviously just doing it for recreation) I would love to try a couple of chess tournaments again.


The 'chess is all but dead' feeling possibly comes from the situation at the top of the heap.

There isn't much world-championship or major-tournament buzz like there should be. Just not much promotion as far as i know (I could be missing it though).

Kasparov is retired and fischer belongs in a loony-bin but chose Iceland instead.
That's about everything that is happening at the top of the chess-world as far as I know.


We need something of interest at the top. Doesn't even need to be a charismatic player like Kasparov.
A Karpov type will do.
Just something to inject some interest and publicity for the top players that seems to be significantly less than it has ever been.


Chess doesn't need the Cold War back-drop of Fischer-Spasky to be bigger than it is currently.

The interest in the Kasparov-Karpov matches was still much bigger than anything that we have today.

[/ QUOTE ]

You're right, there most certainly isn't much to get the public excited right now at the top of chess.

Our best hope? Probably Hikaru Nakamura, the 17-year-old US Champion who is already in the top 50 in the world, and still rising. A young American threat to win the world championship would generate a lot of interest in chess.

And yes, the USCF sillyness is a bit disconcerting. It's not the player base, or even the workers at the USCF that are the problem - it's the leadership that has been struggling. Kind of like FIDE, which has its own problems on an even larger scale.

PS: I'm a not-much-better USCF 1630. /images/graemlins/smile.gif

[vindikation]

Poker is an AMAZING form of gambling. Besides counting cards at blackjack, it's really the only form of legal gambling that I know of that you can have a +EV if your are disciplined and educated on how to play the game. I don't know of any other hobbies or passtimes that are like this.

This in turn makes it VERY addictive. It bugged the HELL out of me that I was a losing player the first 6 months I learned to play poker because I KNEW that it was a +EV game for educated players. Happily I have recouped and doubled up everything I lost in my first 6 months and really love this game.

The craziest thought in my mind (after only playing 1 year) is "will/can I ever quit this game?"

As long as I am a winning player, I just can't see how I can stop. /images/graemlins/shocked.gif

[Camajan]

[ QUOTE ]
If online poker will get big in Germany, France, Spain, Italy and perhaps even more Asia, there will be much growth still.

[/ QUOTE ]

My 50cents, from a german player.:

most of the german online players i know read one or two books before they started playing for real money.
they take the game seriously and want to fish in the us-market.
Normally we must play against a tougher competition, when it´s daytime in US and the fish have to work to gain the money for gambling.
this year started the 2 first Poker shows on TV.
I hope that will help the game and the market, but I´m not sure yet. Other card games played for cash are more popular.
Poker is normally played in home games. From all online players I know only 1 went broke.

[NateDog]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Why can't you make this about yr argument and not people? Seriously, it irks me when someone calls someone else an "idiot" when "I think your opinion is wrong" works just fine. Ad hominem attacks are pointless and immature.

[/ QUOTE ]

This board is nothing but ad hom attacks. I do not like to do it but I lose patients

[/ QUOTE ]

Dude, you are a doctor too?

[AncientPC]

Poker has not peaked yet, NBC just showed a tournament today during tghe afternoon. This is the first time I've seen a public station broadcast poker during semi-prime time hours. Usually I see them showing poker really late at night . . .

[climber]

[ QUOTE ]
Poker has not peaked yet, NBC just showed a tournament today during tghe afternoon. This is the first time I've seen a public station broadcast poker during semi-prime time hours. Usually I see them showing poker really late at night . . .

[/ QUOTE ]

I missed that on the tube but I did hear somethign about NBC signing some big poker related show contract recently.

Poker is fine.

[boondoggle]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Why can't you make this about yr argument and not people? Seriously, it irks me when someone calls someone else an "idiot" when "I think your opinion is wrong" works just fine. Ad hominem attacks are pointless and immature.

[/ QUOTE ]

This board is nothing but ad hom attacks. I do not like to do it but I lose patients

[/ QUOTE ]

Dude, you are a doctor too?

[/ QUOTE ]

I hereby give you your 'I am a pinhead' button to wear proudly.

cheers
Boon

[boondoggle]

Poker is not sustainable at its current rate. What goes up must come down and poker will not be any different.

cheers
Boon

[IggyWH]

[ QUOTE ]
I hereby give you your 'I am a pinhead' button to wear proudly.

cheers
Boon

[/ QUOTE ]

You can't call dude a pinhead when he pwnd you...

gg nubz

[Mr_J]

Unbelievable why someone would think this. Look at the markets yet to be tapped. Look at how cheap the internet is becoming, and how important it is becoming. The online gambling industry has a LONG way to go before peaking.

[boondoggle]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
I hereby give you your 'I am a pinhead' button to wear proudly.

cheers
Boon

[/ QUOTE ]

You can't call dude a pinhead when he pwnd you...

gg nubz

[/ QUOTE ]

Ohhh. Really? I have one for you as well. I keep a box around for manual spell checkers.

cheers
Boon

[sumdumguy]

[ QUOTE ]
Poker is not sustainable at its current rate. What goes up must come down and poker will not be any different.

[/ QUOTE ]
Which isn't sustainable? The rate of growth or current online population?