The future...

[hansarnic]

What would people consider the biggest risks to a good HE players future earning power from OL poker over the next 5/10 yrs?

Bots? Regulation? Not enough fish? Collusion & other forms of cheating? HE falling out of favour?

How serious are these risks? Who thinks OL poker will still be a goldmine in 5yrs?

[Warik]

Regulation #1. Everything else you said is tied for a so-distant-it's-less-than-negligible second.

Bots? Even if you CAN program a bot to play as good as a human, it still cannot think for itself. If everybody starts using a bot, then everybody would be playing predictably. If everyone played predictably, they'd be easy to beat. Besides - the fact that they play "perfect" hold'em (if there is such a thing) does not change the fact that your cards will sometimes be far superior to their cards.

Collusion? If it hasn't become a problem yet, then it won't become a problem. There's been plenty of time for groups of people to get together and share cards and it hasn't caused serious problems as far as I know. If anything, two fish colluding at the same table are likely to actually INCREASE a winning player's win rate as a result of them making mistakes based on their perceived advantage, i.e., "yeah, you do know each others' cards, but you still suck."

Not enough fish? Two things in life are infinite - the universe and human stupidity. We will never run out of fish. Some people are simply not willing to do the work required to become winning players at hold'em - even if it's only a matter of spending a couple of hours to read a book.

HE falling out of favor? As one of the commentators on whatever poker event was on TV yesterday jokingly said about Doyle Brunson: "He's been doing this for the past hundred years after all." As long as winning players can make money playing HE and losing players are willing to donate it, HE won't simply fall out of favor.

I think if everything stays exactly the same, OL poker will continue to be a gold mine. With multitabling and a greater number of hands per hour, I can't imagine how OL poker can fail after live poker has thrived for years.

The only one you need to worry about is Big Brother trying to protect us "compulsive gamblers" from ourselves.

[challenger84]

I think the fear of regulation is unfounded. Offshore gambling has been in place since the early days of the internet (and even before that, offshore sportsbooks have been around forever) and the US government has done little to curb it.

I think the biggest fear I have is that the games won't always be THIS juicy. There will always be fish in the games, but I don't think the recent rise in popularity of poker is sustainable. It will lose steam, just like any fad, and the fishies with the money will find something else to spend it on.

[astroglide]

bots, which reduce the fish

[Warik]

[ QUOTE ]
I think the fear of regulation is unfounded. Offshore gambling has been in place since the early days of the internet (and even before that, offshore sportsbooks have been around forever) and the US government has done little to curb it.

[/ QUOTE ]

I'm not too sure about this. Hypothetical scenario: Would the population of fishies and thus, the profitability of online poker, be a) greater b) lesser or c) the same if major credit cards such as VISA and MC could be used to buy in? There are some people who are not smart enough or too lazy to go through Neteller or Firepay. Even though a law that says "hey, you can't play poker online anymore" wouldn't stop things, heavier regulation of financial institutions may.

[ QUOTE ]
I think the biggest fear I have is that the games won't always be THIS juicy.

[/ QUOTE ]

They may not be as great, but I'm sure they'll never sink to the point where they're simply not profitable and not worth the time.

Another thing that may damage online poker just came to mind - a larger marketplace. Right now the big players (I think?) are Party & Skins, PokerStars, UB, Pokerroom, and Paradise - party being the biggest by far. If we had 10 major, heavily marketed poker rooms online, would we be looking at 10 PartyPokers offering dozens of good games at a time at any site allowing you to 40-table if you are so inclined... or are we looking at 10 smaller sites that don't have a lot of people on them because everyone is all spread out over the Internet?

[Bad Beat Story Detector]

But Visa and MC are US corporations, and subject to US regulation. Neteller and Firepay aren't. There is really no way that the US gov can keep you from using an offshore transaction service to put your money into an offshore site, short of directly regulating the internet, which is not likely to happen any time soon.

[astroglide]

they could easily force usa banking institutions to not do business with neteller/firepay 'because they are used for terrorist money laundering'

[Warik]

[ QUOTE ]
Neteller and Firepay aren't.

[/ QUOTE ]

The US government could restrict US financial institutions from doing business with Firepay and Neteller, or require them to report transactions exceeding a certain amount.

Even if they could not make it completely impossible to get your money into or out of an online card room, they could make it difficult enough to discourage casual gamers from playing online, which would be to our detriment.

Thus, I stand by my previous point: Regulation is more likely to damage online poker than any other factor - if any such damage is "destined" to ever take place.

[challenger84]

You didn't address my point that offshore gaming ventures have been around for many years, have been just as popular and widely used as poker rooms are today, and the government has more or less turned a blind eye. Why would they start cracking down now?

[Ed Miller]

Bots are the biggest threat. When they come into their own (I'd put an ETA on that within two years), they will suck the low-limit games dry. Once they hit, they will be very hard to get rid of. The monetary incentive to keep them running will be huge.

Regulation is a looming threat too, but probably only if Ashcroft stays in power, and even then he probably only has a 10-20% chance of doing serious damage. It's hard to regulate online poker in a loophole-free way.

In five years, there will be poor players, but not nearly in the numbers we see now. That means many fewer playing $15-$30 (especially because many of the weak $15-$30 players got their money from lower limits), which means fewer games, more pros per game, and less money.

I wouldn't worry about collusion or HE falling out of favor.

Online poker will not be nearly the goldmine in five years that it is now. Anyone who thinks that conditions as they are now... that not-so-good players can make $50/hour and good players can make $200/hour... can last for a long time is being overly optimistic. Whenever there is real money to be made this easily, the market will fix itself.