Poker fad already fading?

[revots33]

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Think about this: ALL casino games ARE "rigged"/tilted in favor of THE HOUSE...
people KNOW this good and well before they go to a casino to gamble...yet they continue to do so...why?
I don't think the casino business is going to drop off the face of the earth...

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I've heard this argument many times. But if that's the case - where were all the poker players until recently? Poker isn't a new game. If the fact that people just like to gamble explains why it will always be popular - then why WASN'T it always popular? Most casinos didn't even have poker rooms until the current boom (a boom fueled largely by poker on tv).

I don't agree with the argument that just because people like to gamble, poker must therefore always stay as popular as it is now. One does not equal the other. People move on to different things and newer fads. Even if everyone who currently plays continued to play, the decline of poker's popularity in the popular culture would ensure less new players joining the game.

It's not just a question of television ratings. It's a question of poker's place in the popular consciousness. In a few years, I'll be interested to see how many poker chip sets are on the shelves of Target and Wal-Mart, and how many poker-themed t-shirts are on the racks at Kohl's. Not too many, I'm guessing. Because fads don't last forever. Just because this fad involves a gambling game doesn't mean it won't suffer the fate of most other fads. It will continue to be played by those who love the game, and it will no longer be played by those who were just playing because it was the "in" thing to do.

[SharkBait]

Gambling is a fad.... There won't be any casinos left in 12 months.

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Gambling is a fad.... There won't be any casinos left in 12 months.

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Ship it batches!

[Tom Bayes]

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In a few years, I'll be interested to see how many poker chip sets are on the shelves of Target and Wal-Mart, and how many poker-themed t-shirts are on the racks at Kohl's.

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I bet chip sets will be super cheap at garage sales 5 years from now.

Very well put argument revots...I really have trouble re-futing your last post (in response to mine).

I think, though, what would clear things up a little and what would also move us closer to agreement on the issue would be to define the term "people" as we are both using it/the term...

I agree there will be a certain amount of people who see poker as a "fad" and who will stop playing online and live, stop buying poker merchandise, and stop watching it on TV...they'll move on to the new fad in a few years perhaps...maybe many of them have already moved on! The question is
what %age of players is this? Is it a high percentage? Is what fueled the
recent boom in poker play online (and live) made up of a high percentage of short-attention span "trendy" people?
(probably a high %age of really bad
losing players meet this criteria...)

Give me this, though... that a lot of the people that started playing online (and live)/were INTRODUCED to poker play as a result of the recent boom and WILL end up being lifetime/lifelong players...
(But, you could say, which would go along with YOUR argument, that it goes on to reason that as the years go by, no matter how stupid a "lifetime player" is, he/she will gradually be getting better as time goes on...so this %age of the poker playing population
will eventually all be sharks! lol). So I can see your arguement...the games will get worse...UNTIL the next boom! (hopefully which will occur when online poker rooms begin to be located in the US and
the US begins to regulate and pass laws making it expressy "legal"...this boom will probably be bigger than the moneymaker/ESPN boom!

So, in the end, I agree with you...it stands to reason that "fresh fish"/calling stations/bad players need to
continue to be sent to the games in order to keep them really good...

But There are so many factors that can influence this and the arguement can go back and forth...
Heck - Little "booms" are probably happenning month by month (and even week by week online!).
The games might be great at one site for a few weeks due to a re-load bonus, recent advertising on the part of the poker room, etc., but the next week
the games might stink/be full of sharks! Poker is too big now to decline to the point where all the games will be bad...
it is soo big it just can't happen. Like I said it would take a few hundred years for this to happen - seriously.

I need more coffee before I continue arguing...burning out here...but I still think the games will be "beatable" for the next 100 years at least...lol

consider also that "Really good" players can continue to make money off of the other good players...
it just won't be as much money as a good/ave. player can make from a table full of 5 or 6 fish...

[MicroBob]

There are lots and lots of people who are learning the game via online and are a bit more confident to try the live games now too.
It sounds cliche when Raymer mentions it in his PokerStars TV ad. But I know this to be true.
I was one of those folks (who was told about online-poker and gave it a try). I was a card-counter at BJ and had walked past the poker-room about a zillion times....but knew that I didn't know how to play and that it wasn't +EV for me since I was ignorant...so I never tried it.


I've since met several people who like to play the play-money tables online but are a bit too intimidated to try the real-money yet. Obviously some of these people will....and of those people...some will try the live games too.


Basically....it is my assertion that online-poker makes it easier to learn how to play and is partly the reason for the B&M poker-boom.

I think it all feeds into each other and is kind of a chicken-egg argument almost.

Televised poker helps online-poker....but online-poker is also a help to B&M poker and vice-versa...and home-game poker is obviously bigger than ever partly due to BOTH televised-poker and online-poker...etc etc.