World Poker Views Blog

During most of this decade, poker has had strong and consistent growth. This was especially the case after the Moneymaker WSOP victory, which sparked the three year absolute poker boom. The WSOP swelled with entrants, peaking in 2006 with 8773 entrants. Jamie Gold won that WSOP and its $12 million payday.

Poker took a hit in the fall of 2006 with the passage of the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act (UIGEA). Online poker still managed to grow, though the land-based casinos had to keep their distance from the US-facing sites. The WSOP was smaller in 2007, but still managed 6358 entrants.

Poker’s greatest near-term may not be government regulation though. The US finally got around to implementing measures to block gambling transactions, though its still very unclear how effective they will be. Online poker though may not be plagued by gamblers’ ability to place bets; rather, it may be their will to place bets.

With the stock market collapse and record unemployment, everyone is fearing for their economic health. One of the first places they will cut back is gambling expenditure. While most poker players are overconfident and think they are ‘good’ players even when they are not, dire economic circumstances will bring many to grips with reality.

The most affected will be the high buy-in land-based tournaments. The main fish in these tournaments are typically wealthier middle-aged and older men. Most likely, these players have endured huge losses in their stock portfolios and are not willing to gamble with what money they have left.

Many of the better poker players are simply obtuse with the outside world. They may not have money in the stock market, so they do not understand how it will affect them. They will begin to notice though as the games get appreciably harder, especially the large buy-in tournaments. 

In the United States, it is hard to imagine that the Treasury Department will spend too much time on the UIGEA regulations. They have too many other important things to deal with right now. However, if it turns out that there is an easy, effective way to block payments, that could deal another blow to poker.

We have already seen some mergers and acquisitions in the online poker world. We may see some more, as companies aggressively attempt to cut costs. There may be added jealousy among the European online poker sites at the ones that still accepts US players. The European sites may ‘assist’ in helping clamp down on the US-facing sites, since those sites are also successfully poaching many of the European players away too.