How Long do you think Poker will remain this popular?

[illini43]

With the younger generation of players coming up, most of them still being minors, I think the poker boom will peak in 3-5 years. Many young players watch the ESPN shows and their age group 16-19 will hit the legal gambling age in a couple of years and these kids will start to make trips to their area casinos and Vegas.

[HAL9000]

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As long as people have poker chips, they will play poker.

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Chip and a chair! Hell yeah baby, shuffle up deal!

[afish]

It will tail off over the next 24 months. Bad players will get sick of losing money.

However, as a result of the television exposure, people will no longer be intimidated by casino cardrooms. Because of this, more tourists will be willing to play when on vacation, and casino cardroom business will never drop down to pre-boom levels. Just my opinion.

[krazyace5]

[ QUOTE ]
It will tail off over the next 24 months. Bad players will get sick of losing money.

However, as a result of the television exposure, people will no longer be intimidated by casino cardrooms. Because of this, more tourists will be willing to play when on vacation, and casino cardroom business will never drop down to pre-boom levels. Just my opinion.

[/ QUOTE ] Bad players will get sick of losing money.

How do you explain slots and such still kicking? People never get sick of losing.

[Scuba Chuck]

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Bad players will get sick of losing money.


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IF this were true, which I whole-heartedly doubt, poker is now a global phenomena. This fad will spread like disease/wildfire/whathaveyou until it hits every rich/poor nation of the world. That will take at least another 5-10 years.

On the economic front. Didn't the '70s reflect a huge resurgence in poker and poker roooms? That was a long, tough economic period.

Anyway, if this fad slows, there is plenty of time, we're still looking up the mountain, not down.

[toots]

I'm thinkin "Gold rush."

Hey, it's a fad. Fads have their lifecycles. Pick any fad of the past you like, and you can find that it hasn't gone away; it's just less in the public eye, and perhaps less popular than it was at its zenith. But I think anyone who seriously looks forward to a global Pax Poker economy is probably going to end up being one of those angry old men playing Razz in the corner.

Or, they'll just jump onto the next big thing.

But yeah, I agree that a downturn in the economy probably won't hurt poker any. When the rest of the economy turns into a short-term negative sum game, then zero sum games like poker start looking pretty good.

What I do fear is what happens to all those people who're ready to put career/education into the toilet, just so they can go play poker for a living. What happens when poker slows down, as it almost certainly will?

Well, I put myself into the tech sector, so I guess going poker pro isn't necessarily any worse than most of the alternatives.